(SHAU'illQl 



eiRGtl 



} 




TEN ENGLISHMEN 
OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

JAMES RI CHARD J GY 




y 




Class J/^ 5 Si 
Book_-_T Q__ 
GopyrightN" 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY. 



Ten English- 
men of the 
Nineteenth 
Century 



Wellington 

Canning 

Stephenson 

Russell 

Cobden 

Peel 

Shaftesbury 

Palmerston 

Gladstone 

Disraeli 



BY 



- / 



JAMES RICHARD JOY, M. A. 

AUTHOR OF 

"TWENTY CENTURIES OF ENGLISH HISTORY," "ROME 

AND THE MAKING OF MODERN EUROPE," 

"A HISTORY OF GREECE," ETC. 




5 3) i y' 
) » ) ) 

J ) ' > J 



) ) ) J 3 ^ ) , 3 ^ ' 



> ), J 



NEW YORK CHAUTAUQUA SPRINGFIELD CHICAGO 
MCMII 



DAJ3 



Thm-IBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two CowEti Received 

AUG. ? 1902 

COPVniOHT EN-mv 

CLASS W XXo. No. 

COPY B. 



Copyright, 1902, by 
THE CHAUTAUQUA PRESS 



The Lakeside Press, Chicago, III., U. S. A. 
R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company 



TO 
MY DAUGHTER 

HELEN 

WITH HER father's LOVE 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. England in the Nineteenth Century - i 
II. Wellington, and the Struggle with Napo- 
leon _ . . - - 27 

III. George Canning and European Affairs - 50 

IV. Stephenson and the Railway - - 64 
V. Russell and Parliamentary Reform - 79 

VI. COBDEN AND FrEE TrADE - - - 93 

VII. Peel and Administrative Reforms - - 107 

VIII. Shaftesbury and Philanthropy - - 122 

IX. Lord Palmerston and Foreign Relations 134 

X. Gladstone and the Irish Question - 147 

XI. Beaconsfield and the British Empire - 167 



APPENDIX 

I. Wellington . . . . - 186 

II. George Canning - - - - 195 

III. George Stephenson - - - - i99 

IV. Lord John Russell . - - - 205 
V. Richard Cobden ----- 210 

VI. Sir Robert Peel - - - - 215 

VII. Lord Shaftesbury . . - . 219 

VIII. Lord Palmerston . . - - 230 

IX. William Ewart Gladstone - - - 245 

X. Lord Beaconsfield - - - - 253 



PREFACE 

The object of this work is to set forth with as much 
clearness as possible the more important facts in the his- 
tory of England in the nineteenth century. We have 
chosen to do this through the medium of biography, in 
the belief that the lives of a few representative men would 
present better opportunities for interesting and effective 
treatment than an historical narrative, which must have 
been encumbered by a mass of detail not capable of 
effective disposition within the limited space at our com- 
mand. An introductory chapter serves to give a general 
view of the course of events and to show the relations of 
the men and movements which are afterward presented 
in more detail. 

With but one exception our *'Ten Englishmen" are 
men in public life, political or military. Artists, authors, 
preachers, and scholars were purposely left out of the 
account, because they are to receive prominence in other 
parts of the course for which this volume was written. 
The exception was made in the case of George Stephen- 
son, because the revolution in transportation, due to his 
improvement of the locomotive engine, has had such a 
powerful influence upon the industrial development of the 
nation. 

In bringing these great personages before the reader 
our intention has been quite as much historical as bio- 
graphical. Each name is linked with some conspicuous 

vii 



viii Preface 

problem in statesmanship, and the endeavor has been to 
set forth the work as well as the workman. It is hoped 
that the library notes appended to each chapter will be of 
assistance to the earnest student, in supplementing the 
meager outlines of this volume with the abundance of 
personal detail and wealth of dramatic incident which 
give life and action to history. 

The appendix should not be overlooked. Its selections 
from authentic speeches, letters, dispatches, and other 
writings bring the reader into touch with the men who 
made England great. 

One word more. Our "Ten" are not necessarily 
"T'y^^Ten." They are the men whose lives lay in hne 
with the writer's plan. If they serve to accentuate the 
leading features of the history we are not disposed to argue 
with those who would present other candidates for the 
honor of inclusion in the list. 

James Richard Joy, 

Plainfield, N. J., June 4, 1902. 



TEN ENGLISHMEN OF THE 
NINETEENTH CENTURY 



I 

INTRODUCTION 

ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

The opening of the nineteenth century found England 
in the midst of a great foreign war, which for almost a 
generation absorbed the thought and energy of the nation, 
and postponed for the time the vital questions of economic 
and political reform which clamored for settlement. 

THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON 

The war began in 1793, when the French nation, hav- 
ing overturned its ancient throne, and revolutionized its 
social and political institutions, set out on a democratic 
crusade for "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity," which 
involved it in a conflict v/ith the governments of Europe. 
William Pitt, who had been Prime Minister of George 
III. since 1783, had twice banded the European states 
against the French republican armies; but while the Eng- 
lish fleets remained masters of the seas, the enthusiasm of 
the French soldiers, and the genius of their young generals, 
had thus far proved too strong for the mercenary battalions 
of despotism. In the closing month of the year 1800, 



Q. Ten Englishmen 

Pitt's ''Second Coalition" had been shattered by the 
defeat of the Alhes at Hohenhnden. The Peace of 
Amiens which shortly ensued (March, i802, to May, 
1803) was but a delusion. England greeted it with joy 
and hope, but soon discovered its unreality. From the 
renewal of hostilities, in May, 1803, until the final triumph 
of the Alhes, in 181 5, the war resolved itself into a strug- 
gle between Napoleon and England. This young Cor- 
sican Heutenant had raised himself by sheer force of 
genius and unscrupulous ambition to absolute power. His 
scheme for the subjugation of Europe beat down every 
obstacle except the steady and unbending opposition of 
England. Pitt, who had withdrawn from the government 
because of the stupid King's refusal to honor his Minister's 
pledges of equal rights to the Irish Catholics, was recalled 
by the universal voice of the nation to organize the resist- 
ance. Napoleon had assembled immense armaments upon 
the Channel coast of France for a descent on England, and 
had created a vast flotilla to transport the force to Kent. 
Great Britain trembled with excited apprehension. Three 
hundred thousand volunteers offered their services to the 
government. But, as often in the past, Britain's best 
defense was her wooden walls, and the sagacity, seaman- 
ship, and valor of her sailors, who out-manoeuvered the 
combined fleets of France and Spain, crushed their power 
at Trafalgar (October, 1805), and secured the Channel 
against the invader. Pitt's gold had called into existence 
a Third Coalition (England, Russia, Austria, and Sweden), 
only to see Napoleon hurl it to the ground on the field of 
Austerlitz (December, 1805). England's isolation seemed 
as complete as the Emperor's victory. Russia, Austria, 
and Prussia made humiliating peace with the victor, who 



Introduction 3 

carved his conquests into new states and kingdoms. Pitt, 
who, at the news of Austerlitz, had pointed to the map of 
Europe with the words *'Roll up that map, there will be 
no use for it these ten years," survived the calamity 
scarcely a month. 

Unable to meet, as yet, the English troops in battle on 
the land as he had met and defeated those of the Conti- 
nent, and unequal to England on the seas, Napoleon 
devised a more insidious plan of campaign. Believing 
that a "nation of shop-keepers" might be attacked through 
its trade, he issued from the Prussian capital, in 1 806, the 
famous Berlin Decree, which was the first note of that 
** Continental System," which was intended to close the 
ports of Europe to British goods. The British govern- 
ment met this boycott by its "Orders in Council," which 
placed a blockade upon French ports, and authorized the 
capture of neutral vessels endeavoring to trade with them. 
This inconclusive commercial warfare lasted several years, 
but was far from being successful in its object of ruining 
England. Indeed, it is said that the most stringent 
enforcement of the "Decrees" and "Orders" did not 
prevent the Napoleonic armies from wearing uniforms of 
English cloth and carrying English steel in their scabbards. 

England first began to make head against the French 
conqueror when that far-sighted minister George Can- 
ning sent Sir Arthur Wellesley to Portugal to take com- 
mand of the British forces in the Peninsula. Wellesley 
had recently returned from India, where he had achieved 
a brilliant reputation for thoroughness of organization, 
precision of manoeuver, and unvarying success, qualities 
which at that time were lamentably rare among British 
generals. In Portugal first, and later in Spain, the ster- 



4 Ten Englishmen 

ling qualities of the new commander steadily gained ground 
for England, driving out the French marshals, and carrying 
this Peninsular War to a triumphant conclusion by the 
invasion of France (1814). Created Duke of WeUington 
for his successes in the Peninsula, Wellesley held command 
of the allied forces on the Belgian frontier when, on the 
1 8th of June, 1 81 5, they met and routed the French at 
Waterloo. That day made Napoleon an exile, and ''the 
Iron Duke" the idol of the English lands in which he con- 
tinued to be the most conspicuous personage for nearly 
half a century. 

THE RESETTLEMENT OF EUROPE 

Waterloo brought England into new relations with the 
nations of Europe. The Congress of Vienna, in which 
the victors endeavored to restore the damage wrought by 
the Corsican intruder, added Cape of Good Hope, Ceylon, 
Malta, and a few less important islands, to the growing 
colonial empire of Great Britain. The Holy Alliance, 
which had been suggested by the Czar in 181 5, at the 
friendly meeting of the Russian, Austrian, and Prussian 
sovereigns at Paris, was in theory a compact between 
these powerful rulers — "an intimate union on the basis of 
morality and religion" — but it soon degenerated into an 
unholy league for the mutual protection of these three 
despotic dynasties against the dormant forces of constitu- 
tional liberty, which began to stir again in every European 
state as soon as the Napoleonic specter had been laid. 
The French Revolution had given currency to opinions 
which no congress of sovereigns could wholly repress, and 
now the policy of the "Alliance," to strangle all constitu- 
tional aspirations and rivet the chains of Bourbonism upon 



Introduction 5 

limbs that had once known the bhss of freedom, led to 
fierce intellectual revolt, and sometimes to physical vio- 
lence. England had made common cause with Turk and 
Christian, Kaiser and King, against Napoleon, and for a 
time her statesmen viewed with complacency the Holy 
Alliance, so reassuring in its name and so pure in its pro- 
fessions; but when it became evident that this mighty 
league was to be thrown against every liberty- loving people 
in the Old World and the New, George Canning broke the 
irksome bond, and put the land of parliaments and consti- 
tutional liberty in its rightful place as the friend of free- 
dom and the foe to the oppressor. It was the spirit if not 
the voice of Canning which wa^ powerful to save Portugal 
from the Bourbon, to recognize the independence of the 
revolted American colonies of Spain, and to restrain the 
enemies of freedom from handing insurgent Greece back 
to the Turk. His predecessors had been accustomed to 
sink the interests and desires of England in regard for 
what the continental power called "the good of Europe." 
He was the first statesman of his generation who dared to 
take an independent position on ** European" questions — 
** to write * England, ' " as he phrased it, "where it had been 
the custom to write 'Europe.'" The policy which he 
inaugurated marks a turning-point in the history of British 
foreigTi affairs. 

CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 

George IV., who had been regent since his father's 
illness in 1 8 12, reigned in his own name from 1820 to 
1830, though his voice in the affairs of state was small 
indeed. His Ministers, Liverpool, Canning, Goderich, 
and Wellington, were confronted by serious problems of 



6 Ten Englishmen 

domestic policy which had sprung up during the long 
period of foreign wars and partly in direct consequence of 
those disturbing conditions. The one recurrent question 
which found definite settlement in this reign was that of 
Catholic emancipation. The penal laws against Roman 
Catholics had disgraced the English statute-books for two 
centuries. On the first of January, 1801, the Legislative 
Union of Great Britain and Ireland had gone into effect 
under the name of the United Kingdom. The Irish Parlia- 
ment, which had met in Dubhn since 1782, went out of 
existence, and in the place of "Home Rule" Ireland was 
represented in both houses of the Imperial Parliament at 
Westminster. Pitt had promised the numerous Catholics 
of Ireland that the laws which made them ineligible to rep- 
resent their country in Parliament should be repealed, and 
had abandoned office in disgust when George III. refused 
to sanction his project of Catholic emancipation. In 
1807 the Whig ministry espoused the same cause, and in 
turn resigned because of the opposition of the Crown. 
In Daniel O'Connell the cause at length found a spokes- 
man whose eloquence, wit, and talent for *' agitation'* 
soon combined his Irish partisans into ''The Catholic 
Association." Working in conjunction with the Whigs 
of England, O'Connell's followers formed a body which 
could not be neglected. Soon after Canning's untimely 
death the Duke of Wellington had taken office. He was 
a Tory, with all the prejudices of that political faith deep- 
ened by his birth and training as an Irish Protestant, but 
the agitation had reached such proportions that he saw in 
it a menace of civil war, to avoid which he was willing to 
abandon his most cherished opinions on the Catholic ques- 
tion. Accordingly, in 1829, the Iron Duke faced about 



Introduction 7 

and brought in the bill which, becoming a law by Whig 
and Canningite votes, admitted Roman Catholics to Parlia- 
ment, and to civil rights only a little short of complete. 
But instead of removing the Irish question from politics, 
it was only prepared for more strenuous presentation in a 
new guise, for O'Connell was returned to Parliament at 
the head of some fifty Catholic members to agitate for 
Irish independence. 

RAILWAYS 

The perfection of the steam locomotive and the incep- 
tion and marvelous development of the system of steam 
railway transportation marked the second quarter of the 
century. The name of the Stephensons, father and son, 
is inseparably connected with this work which has affected 
so deeply the economic and social life of the nation, and 
has contributed in a thousand indirect ways to the expan- 
sion and consolidation of the empire. It has been said 
that in 1825 the traveler from London to Rome went no 
faster than the courier of the Caesars, eighteen hundred 
years before. Thanks to George Stephenson's inventive 
genius, the traveler of to-day consumes scarcely more time 
between London and Peking. 

THE REFORM OF PARLIAMENT 

The reform of Parliament was the next question to 
come up for settlement. In 1830 representation in the 
House of Commons still remained upon a basis which had 
been established centuries before. Meantime the distri- 
bution of the voting population had been totally trans- 
formed. The most populous shires had no more seats 
than the least of all. There were decayed boroughs which 
had dwindled in population until but a handful of voters 



8 Ten Englishmen 

remained, yet these "rotten" boroughs retained their 
right to choose one or more members of Parhament, while 
the great modern manufacturing towns and seaports were 
totally unrepresented. The agitation for parliamentary 
reform, which rose in the middle of the eighteenth century, 
was directed against the sale of seats in the rotten boroughs, 
and the shameless bribery. As early as 1770 Lord Chat- 
ham had predicted reform or revolution. His son, the 
younger Pitt, had proposed remedies, but the deluge which 
overwhelmed the government of France in the closing 
years of the century stiffened English conservatism for a 
century against any radical political change. Meanwhile 
the rapid industrial expansion of the kingdom, with its 
unprecedented increase of population, and the sudden 
growth of insignificant hamlets into teeming factory towns, 
had emphasized the injustice of existing arrangements. 
Earl Grey, who had been an advocate of reform for forty 
years, and Lord John Russell, who had championed the 
cause for a decade, were united in the Whig ministry 
which succeeded Wellington in 1830. Supported by a 
tremendous popular demand which seemed to stir the 
nation to its depths they brought in their first bill in 183 1. 
It prevailed in the Commons by a bare majority, but the 
Tory House of Lords threw it out. This action by the 
privileged class was a signal for an indignant outburst from 
the nation. The "Radicals," as the advanced Whigs 
were already beginning to be called, did not conceal their 
lack of respect for the Upper House, and used revolution- 
ary threats against it as a relic of medisevalism which 
should no longer be tolerated in a free state. But the 
time had passed when the peers could flout an aroused 
nation. When the Third Reform Bill was ready for pass- 



Introduction 9 

age, the ministers secured the King's promise to frustrate 
the opposition of the Lords by fiUing up the House with 
new peers created expressly to vote for reform. The 
threat sufficed. Welhngton and the most stern and un- 
bending Tories absented themselves from the decisive 
division, and allowed the Reform Bill to become a law 
in June, 1832. 

ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS 

Great things were expected of the first Parliament 
which was chosen on the basis of the new law. The 
seats gamed by the disfranchisement of the small and 
corrupt boroughs were distributed to new constituencies 
in London, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, 
Newcastle, and the other modern cities. The more popu- 
lous counties were subdivided into districts, and the divis- 
ions received additional representation. The franchise 
had also been extended and based upon a moderate prop- 
erty qualification. The result was, that the center of 
political power passed from the nobility and landed gentry, 
with whom it had resided for centuries, and came to the 
farmers and shop-keepers, the so-called middle class, lying 
between the ancient aristocracy of birth and landed posses- 
sions and the still unenfranchised masses of mill operatives 
and agricultural laborers. That the new Parliament would 
show a new temper and be dominated by new ideas was 
but natural. But those who inferred from the bitterness 
of the struggle for reform that the nation was on the 
verge of an abyss into which the Lords and the Crown 
should shortly topple, greatly deceived themselves. 



lO Ten Englishmen 

THE POOR LAWS 

The reformed Parliaments devoted themselves to cer- 
tain long-deferred and intensely practical reforms which 
were social and economic in their nature, leaving the con- 
stitution alone for the next twenty years. In these Parlia- 
ments and ministries for the next forty years the Whig 
party usually had the upper hand. In 1834 Parliament 
revolutionized the system of public relief to the needy 
which had existed for fifty years, to the extreme demorali- 
zation of the poorer working-classes and the frustration of 
really benevolent purpose. The old law had assumed 
that each parish owed every native a living. A sliding 
scale was accordingly provided by which, as the rate of 
wages declined, the parish should pay to the workman 
enough to bring his receipts up to the standard amount. 
Employers took advantage of this system to cut wages to 
a minimum, the parish making up the difference. Another 
mischievous clause increased the pauper's dole in propor- 
tion to the number of his children, with the direct result 
of early and improvident marriages. To put it bluntly, 
children were bred for the bounty » The number of per- 
sons receiving parish aid was enormously increased. The 
self-respect of the poor was destroyed, and the poor-rate 
became a burden of millions of pounds annually upon the 
treasury. The act of 1834 put an end to these abuses by 
restricting outdoor relief to the aged and destitute, and 
requiring all other paupers to go to the union workhouse. 
Within two years the poor-rate was diminished fully one- 
third. 



Introduction ii 

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY 

In 1834 slavery was abolished throughout the British 
dominions. The earnest labors of the Abolitionists, 
Clarkson, Wilberforce, Macaulay, and others, had secured 
the abolition of the slave trade thirty years before (1807), 
but the united opposition of the colonial planters to a 
reform which would deprive them of the services of their 
chattel laborers postponed the consummation of the 
humanitarian measure. The reformed Parliament proved 
less sensitive to the planters' arguments. It destroyed 
the system forever, making a cash compensation to the 
owners. 

A third question, on which Earl Grey's ministry took 
high moral ground, was a redress of another of the ancient 
wrongs of Ireland. The Church of England was by law 
estabhshed in that most distressful country, and the people, 
though mostly Roman Catholics, were under the necessity 
of paying tithes for the support of a church which they 
detested, and which indeed, in a large part of the island, 
had no existence except for purposes of taxation. The 
Irish protest, as has often been the case, took the form of 
violence and outrage, the so-called ** Tithe War," which 
postponed rather than hastened the redress of their griev- 
ance. But in 1835 the ministry of Lord Melbourne 
relieved the peasants of this part of their many burdens. 

ACCESSION OF VICTORIA 

The name of Lord Melbourne has been kept green not 
only by the Australasian metropolis, but by the fact that 
it was his duty as Prime Minister to announce to the Prin- 
cess Alexandrina Victoria the fact — to her so momentous — 



12 Ten Englishmen 

that her uncle, Wilham IV., was dead (June 20, 1837), 
and that she, a girl of eighteen, was Queen of England. 
Victoria, as she was known thenceforward, lived to see 
the dawn of the twentieth century, to witness the enor- 
mous development of the British empire in population, 
wealth, and power, and it is perhaps not too much to say, 
to win all hearts among her subjects by the simplicity, 
purity, and strength of her character. Had she displayed 
the stubborn stupidity of her grandfather, George III., or 
the immorality of some of his sons, it is not rash to beheve 
that the tide of radicalism might have thrown down all 
barriers and swept away the throne on the flood of democ- 
racy. By grace of character she was a model constitu- 
tional sovereign, and her benign reign, the longest in 
English annals, contributed more than the policy of any of 
her ministers to make the monarchy popular and per- 
manent. 

The first decade of the Victorian era witnessed three 
great agitations, two of which ended in fiasco and the 
third in a triumph which wrought tremendous changes in 
the kingdom. ''Chartism," "Repeal," and **Free 
Trade" were the three topics on which the thought of 
multitudes was engaged. 

CHARTISM 

Chartism was the name applied to the agitation in 
favor of a statement of principles called ''The People's 
Charter. ' ' The six points of Chartism were : ( I ) annual 
Parliaments, (2) salaries for members, (3) universal suf- 
frage, (4) vote by ballot, (5) abolition of property qualifi- 
cation for membership in the House of Commons, and (6) 
equal electoral districts. The demand came from the 



Introduction 13 

workingmen, who were dissatisfied because the Reform Bill 
of 1832 had stopped short of their political stratum. The 
Chartists copied the method of agitation which O'Connell 
had employed in extorting Catholic emancipation. Mon- 
ster meetings, mile-long petitions, copious effusions of 
printer's ink and oratory, and a National Charter Associ- 
ation were a part of the machinery. In 1848, when the 
prevalent hard timiCS increased the restless discontent of 
the masses, the movement culminated in a vast assembly 
on Kennington Common. A respectful half-million were 
to march to Westminster and lay their demands, the six 
points backed by six million signatures, before the Com- 
mons. The year 1848 was one of widespread discontent, 
the revolution year of the century, and the authorities 
took pains to guard the peace of London with especial 
care, even Wellington being called into service -to direct 
the mihtary. But nine-tenths of the mob failed to put in 
appearance, and the monster petition turned out to be a 
monstrous and clumsy fraud. Nothing came of it at the 
moment. The return of better times took the heart out 
of the agitation, and the progress of orderly political devel- 
opment gradually incorporated three of the Chartist points 
in the law of the land without seriously affecting the con- 
stitution. 

O'CONNELL AND REPEAL 

The second popular war cry was ** Repeal." In this 
agitation, again O'Connell's was the chief personage, and 
his eloquence the chief factor. It was in effect another 
phase of the Irish demand for Home Rule. Since the 
first day of the new century Ireland had been, for legisla- 
tive purposes, a part of the United Kingdom. It was the 



14 Ten Englishmen 

act which had estabUshed this ''Legislative Union" and 
abohshed the Irish Parhament which O'Connell was 
determined to repeal. All that monster meetings, soul- 
moving oratory, secret associations, printer's ink, could do 
to influence the government by parliamentary manceuver, 
demonstration of popular feeling, intimidation, and 
threats of insurrection was done. As a member of 
Parliament, and the dictator to his ''tail" of half a hun- 
dred Irish members, the silver-tongued ''Irish tribune" 
exerted a considerable political power so long as parties 
were somewhat evenly divided so as to make his support 
desirable. But when, in 1 841, the Tories came back into 
office under Sir Robert Peel, backed by a strong majority, 
this influence declined. The arrest of O'Connefl, in 
1843, foi" treasonable utterances, discredited him with his 
following, which soon fell apart — the more determined 
section to carry Ireland's cause to the extreme of violent 
outbreak, the milder partisans to await a more opportune 
moment to press their agitation for Home Rule. 

THE REPEAL OF THE CORN LAWS 

The names of Sir Robert Peel and Richard Cobden 
are indissolubly connected with the legislation which 
repealed the "Corn Laws" and placed English commerce 
upon the basis of free trade — Cobden as the theorist and 
untiring agitator, whose splendid talents were unsparingly 
devoted to preparing public opinion for the economic revo- 
lution, and Peel as the protectionist Prime Minister, who 
was open-minded enough to become convinced of his error 
in persisting in the policy in which he had been trained. 
The necessity for a change of commercial policy grew out 
of the altered conditions in the nation. The agricultural 



Introduction 15 

England of the eighteenth century had in a generation 
been transformed into a hive of manufacturing industry. 
The rapid adoption of steam power and improved 
machinery in England on the one hand, and the paralysis 
of industry on the Continent during the Napoleonic wars, 
had wrought the change, while the commercial marine, 
guarded by her powerful navy, had brought the carrying 
trade of the world under her flag. The weakest point in 
the English system was the protective tariff, which lay 
heaviest on imports of grain — or **corn," to use the insular 
term. The Corn Laws were a body of legislation enacted 
from time to time by Parliaments which were controlled 
by the great land-owning interests. The land-owner, 
whose income was derived chiefly from rents upon agri- 
cultural lands, consistently favored a scale of tariffs which 
would maintain the price of cereal grains at the highest 
figure. At the close of the great war (181 5) the nation 
was confronted with business disaster. "War prices" for 
grain fell rapidly, the markets were stocked with more 
manufactured goods than impoverished Europe could 
absorb, while the English labor market was glutted by the 
influx of several hundred thousand able-bodied soldiers and 
sailors in quest of industrial employment. As early as 
1 82 1 Mr. Huskisson, a cabinet colleague of Mr. Canning, 
had endeavored to lighten the burden of British manu- 
factures by reducing the import duties upon the raw 
material used by the English looms. He was for getting 
at the root of the matter and disposing of the Corn Laws, 
so as to provide ''free food" as well as "free raw mate- 
rials," but his Tory companions believed that such legisla- 
tion would vote the bread out of their own mouths. In 
1838 an Anti-Corn Law Association was formed at Man- 



1 6 Ten Englishmen 

Chester. Under the direction of Richard Cobden, a young 
and successful manufacturer, who had become the most 
ardent of free traders, a league of similar clubs was organ- 
ized throughout the country, and through it an agitation 
unsurpassed in the history of politics was prosecuted until 
its object was attained. In Parliament he became one of 
the most effective orators, and the chief target of his argu- 
ment was Peel, the leader of the protectionists. In 
1845-46 a more powerful argument than Cobden's was 
thrown into the scale. The failure of the Irish potato 
crop, the sole food supply of that unhappy island, '^forced 
Peel's hand." In the face of two-thirds of his own party, 
in opposition to his own life-long political creed, he gave 
notice as Prime Minister that he should introduce a bill 
for the immediate reduction and ultimate repeal of the 
laws which were responsible for the high price of food. 
He had become a convert to free trade, and was ready to 
carry it into practice. The young Disraeli, as the repre- 
sentative of the protectionist element of his party, lashed 
the premier in the speech which first gave him a following 
in the Parliament that he was soon to control. But 
enough Peelites followed their leader into the camp of the 
free traders to carry the bill. The Corn Laws disap- 
peared from the statute-book. 

HUMANITARIAN LEGISLATION 

The sudden and enormous expansion of English indus- 
try in the early part of the century brought special hard- 
ship to several classes in the community. The substitution 
of the factory system for cottage industry destroyed home 
life for thousands of families, and the pressure of poverty 
and the greed of manufacturers ground the poor mill oper- 



Introduction 17 

atives between the upper and nether millstones. To 
Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, more than 
to any other is due the persistent investigation and dis- 
closure which aroused the public mind to the prevailing 
conditions in mine and factory where hours of labor were 
excessive, and where women and children were subjected 
to degrading tasks and brutal treatment. The Factory 
Law and kindred legislation since 1830 are the fruits of 
the beneficent and untiring labors of the Earl. 

PALMERSTON AND FOREIGN RELATIONS 

The era which had been marked by such political, 
social, and economic reforms and agitations came to a 
close in the middle of the century. The Whigs came into 
power in Parliament in 1846 for a long term. Foreign 
affairs supplied the most notable topics for the next twenty 
years. The foreign minister during much of this time 
was Lord Palmerston. He it was who piloted the nation 
without disaster through the rocks of 1848-51, when 
thrones were toppling in every European kingdom, and 
England was being appealed to for help against despot 
and democrat. 

THE EASTERN QUESTION 

The "Eastern Question" now came up. The Czar of 
Russia, an object of suspicion to England, because of his 
rivalry with her for the possession of India, endeavored to 
secure from the Sultan of Turkey official recognition of 
his government as the legitimate protector of Christians 
in the Ottoman empire. Such a responsibility would have 
afforded many opportunities for interfering in Turkish 
affairs. France opposed the demand, and Palmerston 



1 8 Ten Englishmen 

placed England on the side of Napoleon III., against the 
Czar, who had invaded Turkey in pursuance of his design 
to annex a large part of her European provinces, and 
advance his position toward Constantinople. The Crimean 
War which followed (1854-56) at least checked Russia 
for the time. It was the only European war in which 
England had borne arms since Waterloo. But in Asia 
and Africa the Queen's troops had found almost continual 
employment along the frontiers of the now vastly extended 
empire. In 1857 Persia had to be chastised for edging 
toward India by way of the Afghan possessions. Russia 
had been at the Shah's elbow. In 1856, and repeatedly 
until i860, the British fleets were battering open the ports 
of China and extorting trade concessions. But the most 
memorable war in the imperial history of these years was 
within the borders of the empire, though in a distant land. 
This was the Sepoy Rebellion or Indian mutiny of 1857. 

THE GREAT SEPOY MUTINY 

The British possessions in India had been more than 
doubled in extent since the opening of the century. In 
1833 the trade monopoly of the East India Company had 
been broken, but its civil and military servants continued 
to administer the government. Their ability was displayed 
especially in the rapidity with which they were extending 
British authority over the native states when the outbreak 
came. A conspiracy was laid among the Sepoys, the 
native soldiers in the regiments of "John Company," as 
the great corporation was called in Asia. To their pri- 
vate grievances was added the false report that the com- 
pany intended to force them into Christianity by serving 
out to them cartridges which would defile them, neat's 



Introduction 19 

tallow for the Hindoo venerator of the sacred cow, and 
hog's lard for the Mohammedan hater of swine! In May, 
1857, the mutiny burst into flame. The Sepoys slaughtered 
their officers and many other Europeans, and restored the 
heir of the ancient race of kings to the throne of his 
fathers at Delhi. Here and there, at Cawnpore and 
Lucknow, a few British troops defended themselves and 
the refugees against the hordes of bloodthirsty rebels. 
The ^'Massacre of Cawnpore" and **the Relief of Luck 
now," phrases which have passed into history, suggest 
the fate of the two beleaguered garrisons. The rebellion 
was over in a twelve-month, smothered in its own blood. 
Close upon its suppression came the death of the East 
India Company, abolished by act of Parliament in 1858. 
Since that year the crown has ruled the Indian realm 
through a Secretary of State for India, residing in Lon- 
don, and a Viceroy holding court at Calcutta. 

From the defeat of the mutineers, in 1859, to his own 
death, in 1865, Lord Palmerston managed to save the 
nation from being embroiled to the fighting-point in the 
perpetual quarrels of Europe. Italy fought and won her 
liberty from the Austrian; Poland rose against the Rus- 
sian; Denmark had her damaging Schleswig-Holstein 
War with Prussia and Austria. English sympathies were 
strongly enlisted in all these troubles, but Palmerston 
would not allow her to proceed to the point of breaking 
the peace. From 1 86 1 to 1865, while the Civil War was 
being fought out in America, his government was prompt 
to recognize the belligerent status of the Confederacy, 
and to favor the South by allowing privateers like the 
"Alabama" to be built and manned in English ports. But 
the actual break with Mr. Lincoln's government did not 



20 Ten Englishmen 

come, and the old Whig statesman lived to see the South 
overpowered. 

Through the middle reaches of the century the political 
power in England remained for the most part in the hands 
of the Whig, latterly called Liberal, ministries. The 
impulse for reform — political, economic, and social — had 
spent itself before 1 850, and the older statesmen who 
guided the public policies had no sympathy with the 
demands for radical legislation, church disestablishment, 
universal suffrage, and what not, which came up from 
many parts of the nation. With the death of Palmerston, 
and the retirement of Russell, a new era was inaugurated, 
and new actors stepped to the front of the stage. 

GLADSTONE AND DISRAELI 

At the head of the Liberals was William Ewart Glad- 
stone, who in his younger days had followed his master. 
Peel, out of the old Tory lines into the camp of the free 
traders, and had been Russell's chief lieutenant, and Palm- 
erston 's financial minister for the last half-dozen years. 
He was a man of splendid intellectual power, sterling 
morality, an adept at parliamentary management, a shrewd 
financier, and held a deep conviction that it was the part 
of statesmanship to embody in law what he conceived to 
be the proper demands of the nation. His opponent for 
a generation was Benjamin Disraeli, the young Jewish 
novelist, who had first won a following in the House of 
Commons by voicing the venom of the old-line protection- 
ist Tories against the recreant Peel. Versatile, shifty, 
brilliant, this adventurous politician made himself indis- 
pensable to the Conservatives, and overcame by political 
moves which were little short of genius, the leadership of 



Introduction 2i 

the opposition. Indeed, he may be said to have trans- 
formed Conservatism, giving it a new rallying cry, and 
inscribing great achievements upon its banner. 

LIBERAL REFORMS 

"Whenever that man gets my place we shall have 
strange doings, ' ' Palmerston had said toward the end of 
his life, alluding to the open-minded Chancellor of the 
Exchequer, Mr. Gladstone, and had he remained on earth 
for another generation, he would indeed have seen much 
done by his erstwhile followers under Gladstone's direc- 
tion which he would have accounted passing strange. 
Admitting the democratic principle that the state owed it 
to itself to provide every man's child with an education, 
Gladstone inaugurated (1870) a beneficent system of 
free public schools. An old popular grievance, the viva 
voce method of voting at parliamentary elections, was done 
away and the secret ballot substituted (1872), a change 
which struck a heavy blow at the prevalent bribery and 
intimidation. He corrected one of the worst abuses in 
the army by abolishing the purchase system, under which 
a junior officer was accustomed to buy his promotion by 
compensating his seniors, a practice which had closed the 
higher grades to men of small means. The extension of 
the suffrage to the agricultural laborers was finally reached 
by his Reform Bill of 1884, the last class being thus 
admitted to the body politic. 

THE CAUSE OF IRELAND 

But it was to the grievances of Ireland that Gladstone 
bent the readiest ear, and it was upon that reef that his 
pohtical career made shipwreck at the last. In his first 



22 Ten Englishmen 

ministry he undertook and carried the disestabhshment of 
the Irish Church, by which the Irish Cathohcs were 
reHeved of an odious burden. His Irish Land Act of 
1870 aimed to give the tenant-farmer certain valuable 
rights in the land which he rented. The result was rather 
to redouble the cry against "landlordism," with its corol- 
lary of agrarian crime. A second Land Act (1881) pro- 
vided a land court for adjusting rents. Instead of quieting 
the disorders this indulgent legislation was the signal for a 
fresh outburst of crime. The Irish Land League was 
organized to secure the abohtion of landlordism, and when 
the Irish leader, Charles Stewart Parnell, was imprisoned 
he exhorted the tenants to cease paying rent altogether 
until the government should grant all their demands. The 
Liberals were forced for the moment to use strong meas- 
ures to restore order to Ireland, but the Home Rule party 
in Parhament, skillfully led by Mr. Parnell, continued to 
embarrass legislation and obstruct the ordinary functions 
of government. In April, 1886, Mr. Gladstone, having 
become Prime Minister for the third time, asked Parlia- 
ment to grant home rule to Ireland through an Irish 
Parliament sitting at Dublin. Parnell and his following 
supported the measure, but the Liberal party was rent in 
twain. Lord Hartington, Joseph Chamberlain, John 
Bright, and others of less note, deserted their old chief. 
Enough of these ''Liberal Unionists" seceded to defeat 
the bill. In August, 1892, the aged Liberal chieftain 
again carried the elections and took the seals of office for 
the fourth time. Home Rule was again the principal plank 
in his platform, and all the energies of the ''Grand Old 
Man" were mustered to carry a new law differing some- 
what from the bill of 1886. Though it passed the Com- 



Introduction 23 

mons (301 to 267) it was thrown out by the Lords by 419 
to 41, and his successor, Lord Rosebery, had no mind to 
renew the contest. 

GLADSTONE'S FOREIGN POLICY 

The Gladstonian foreign pohcy was such as might have 
been expected from a leader whose motto was "Peace, 
Retrenchment, and Reform." It was never aggressive, 
and in the opinion of many, it was lacking in the assertion 
of British rights. Thus, in 1 87 1, when Russia refused to 
be bound longer by the treaty stipulations forbidding her 
to maintain a war fleet on the Euxine, Mr. Gladstone did 
not hold her to her engagement. In England it was 
thought to be a sign of weakness in his government to 
allow the * 'Alabama" and **San Juan Boundary" ques- 
tions to be settled by arbitrators instead of by diplomacy 
or a show of force. In 1 88 1, when the Boers of the 
Transvaal had worsted the British at Majuba Hill, they 
received from Gladstone an honorable peace instead of 
extermination. The abandonment of the Egyptian Sou- 
dan, in 1883, which carried with it the massacre of General 
Gordon, at Khartoum, was perhaps the heaviest load that 
the Gladstonian foreign policy ever had to bear. 

DISRAELI AND IMPERIALISM 

Foreign affairs were the field of Disraeli's most bril- 
hant exploits. "He had two ruling ideas," says the histo- 
rian Oman, "the first was the conception of England as an 
imperial world-power, interested in European politics, but 
still more interested in the maintenance and development 
of her vast colonial and Indian empire. This is the notion 
which friends and enemies now using the word in different 



24 Ten Englishmen 

senses call 'imperialism.' The second ruling thought in 
Disraeli's mind was the conviction that the Conservative 
party ought to step forward as rival to the Liberal party 
in commanding the sympathies and allegiance of the 
masses." In pursuance of this second idea he took the 
"leap in the dark," in 1867, carrying a reform bill which 
was but little short of democratic in its extension of the 
right to vote. This was followed up by legislation favor- 
ing the English tenant-farmers, and improving the con- 
dition of workingmen in towns. Even after Disraeli s 
death, Lord Salisbury continued his domestic pohcy, 
instituting local government by means of county councils 
in 1888, making the schools free in 189 1, and refunding 
the national debt in 1888. 

It was a great day for the British empire when Dis- 
raeli's telegram to the hard-pressed Khedive of Egypt, in 
1875, bought for England the controlling interest in the 
Suez Canal, the water-gate to India. It was a bold stroke 
of Disraeh's also which, at the close of the Russo-Turkish 
War of 1877-78, compelled the victor to take his paw 
from the throat of his victim and submit the treaty to a 
congress of the powers at Berhn, where its terms were 
modified and England was admitted to its benefits. The 
Second Afghan War (1878- 80), and the Zulu War 
(1878-79), and the Boer War, which brought httle glory 
to Britain, were the direct result of the Prime Minister's 
desire to extend the empire and strengthen its frontiers. 
It may have been theatrical, but it was certainly impressive 
to the assembled princes of India when Lord Lytton, the 
Viceroy, proclaimed Victoria Empress of India in Delhi, 
the old capital of the Moguls, on January i, 1877. And 
though Disraeli (raised to the peerage as Lord Beacons- 



Introduction 25 

field) was in his grave, his spirit dominated the pageantry 
of 1887 and 1897, when every nation and tribe and kindred 
and people of the Greater Britain sent representatives to 
London to celebrate the jubilee and diamond jubilee of 
the Empress-Queen, to whose aggrandizement he had con- 
tributed so effectively. 

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS 

The century closes upon another England than that 
which was struggling against Napoleon at its dawn. 
Instead of the "right little tight little island," a compact 
and self-contained nation, it is now the head of an empire 
comparable in extent and population with no other since 
the Rome of Augustus. Canada, Federal Australia, 
New Zealand, and South Africa form a Greater Britain, 
while the subject lands and islands dot the globe. The 
problem which confronts the English at the end of the 
century is not whether they can hold their own against a 
foreign power as in the days of Waterloo, but whether all 
these British commonwealths can be made to work together 
in some sort of federal union, or whether the present ties 
are to dissolve or snap asunder and girdle the globe with 
independent states like the American republic, where each 
may be free to develop under its peculiar conditions the 
genius of the Anglo-Saxon race. 

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 

1. How was England situated at the opening of the nine- 
teenth century? 

2. What did the names Hohenlinden, Trafalgar, and Aus- 
terlitz mean to England? 

3. Sum up briefly the career of Wellesley. 

4. How did Canning's policy mark a turning-point in 
British foreign affairs? 



26 Ten Englishmen 

5. What was the result of the Catholic agitation? 

6. How did the locomotive influence England's empire? 

7. How was Parliament changed by the Reform Bill? 

8. What changes in the Poor Laws were at once under- 
taken? 

9. What action regarding slavery and Irish taxation? 

10. What was the Chartist agitation? 

11. Describe the agitation for "repeal." 

12. Why did the Corn Laws become intolerable? 

13. What reforms were wrought through the influence of 
the Earl of Shaftesbury? 

14. Through what foreign complications did England pass 
under Palmerston? 

15. What important abuses were corrected under Glad- 
stone's leadership? 

16. Describe his dealings with the Irish question. 

17. How were certain great foreign matters dealt with by 
his government? 

18. What brilliant foreign achievements were accom- 
plished by Disraeli? 

19. What is England's problem in the twentieth century? 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

History of England During the Thirty Years Peace. By 
Harriet Martineau. 

History of E?tgla7id Since i8ij. By Spencer Walpole. 

The History of Our Own Times. By Justin McCarthy. 

England in the XlXth Century. By Elizabeth Wormely 
Latimer. 

The Greville Memoirs. Edited by Henry Reeve. 

History of the Chartist Move7nent. By R. G. Gammage. 

The Reign of Queen Victoria. Edited by T. Humphrey 
Ward. 

History of England. By W. N. Molesworth. 



II 

WELLINGTON, AND THE STRUGGLE WITH 
NAPOLEON 

[Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, born in Ireland, 
1769; died Walmer Castle, September 14, 1852; educated at 
Eton and at Angers; entered Seventy-third Regiment as 
ensign, 1787; purchased lieutenant-colonelcy of Thirty-third 
Regiment, 1793; served in Holland expedition, 1794-95; 1796, 
in India with his regiment; 1803, major-general, commands 
in Mahratta War, victory at Assaye; 1805, in England; 1806, 
member of Parliament; 1807, Secretary for Ireland; 1808, in 
Portugal; 1809-13, chief in command in Peninsula, clears 
Portugal and Spain of the French; 1814, English Ambassa- 
dor at Paris; 1815, defeats Napoleon at Waterloo; 1815, 
commander-in-chief of allied army in France; 1818, master- 
general of the ordnance; 1822, represents England at Con- 
gress of Verona; 1828-30, Prime Minister; 1829, grants 
Catholic emancipation; 1834-35, Foreign Secretary; 1841, 
commander-in-chief. Buried in St. Paul's Cathedral.] 

In February, 1792, William Pitt, Prime Minister of 
George IIL, unfolding his annual budget in the House of 
Commons, declared, ** Unquestionably there never v^as 
a time in the history of this country when, from the situ- 
ation of Europe, we might more reasonably expect fifteen 
years of peace, than at the present moment." Yet within 
a twelvemonth after this utterance, apparently sincere, 
France and England were plunged into a war which 
lasted, with but one brief intermission, until 181 5. It 
embroiled in succession nearly every nation in Europe. 

27 



2 8 Ten Englishmen 

In France it provided a theater for the genius of Napo- 
leon, who after conquering in turn the best soldiers of the 
continent, was to meet his match in the Duke of Welhng- 
ton on the field of Waterloo. 

The first period of the war mainly antedates the cen- 
tury which we are considering. In 1793 the Convention, 
the revolutionary body which had taken the place of the 
overturned French monarchy, declared war on Holland 
and England. Pitt was stih at the head of King George 
III.'s ministry, and the conduct of the war devolved 
upon him. Her insular position and powerful fleet 
rendered England safe from invasion, but her active par- 
ticipation in the military operations upon the continent 
was limited in measure and distressing in outcome. The 
expeditions which she landed in the Netherlands were 
shockingly inadequate in numbers, and led by high-born 
generals without knowledge, talent, or experience. It is 
little wonder that they accomplished nothing except to 
feed the French contempt for English arms. 

Successive coalitions were formed by the energetic Pitt 
with Prussia, Austria, and other nations to check the 
advance of the republican armies in which, after 1795, 
the figure of Napoleon Bonaparte leaped into prominence. 
His victories disintegrated these alliances, which had been 
cemented with English gold. At the same time his vic- 
tories so strengthened his personal hold upon the army 
and the nation that he was able to make himself absolute 
master of France. 

The Peace of Amiens (March, 1802, to May, 1803) 
afforded the only breathing space in all these twenty-two 
years of warfare. Napoleon, now first consul, was soon 
to change that repubhcan mask for the honest and ambi- 



Wellington, and Struggle with Napoleon 29 

tious title of emperor. The hollowness of the peace soon 
became evident. Under its cloak French ships were build- 
ing and French armies mustering in the channel ports for 
the invasion of England. The character of the strife had 
now radically changed. At the outset, ten years before, 
England had joined hands with the continental monarchies 
to check the spread of the liberal ideas which the French 
republican armies were carrying on their bayonets in a 
species of crusade in the name of liberty. But with the 
accession of Bonaparte to the throne of the Bourbons, 
England was plunged into a struggle for existence. Napo- 
leon himself said that peace could never prevail in Europe 
so long as England had the power to disturb it, and all 
parties in England were resolved to combat to the last the 
establishment of a vast and menacing military despotism 
beyond the Straits of Dover. 

The genius of Admiral Nelson preserved the command 
of the narrow seas for England, and forced the Emperor 
to abandon his project of invasion which had aroused the 
English nation to unprecedented military activity. Pitt's 
subsidies had again set the continental armaments in mo- 
tion, but Napoleon's brilliant dash into Germany brought 
these to naught in the battle of Austerlitz, which destroyed 
the Third Coalition and brought Austria to terms. It 
was this news that the great Prime Minister of George III. 
took so to heart. He survived the disaster but a few 
weeks. But the ministry of "All the Talents" took up 
his task with no thought of abandoning the struggle. 
The death of Fox soon broke up this administration, but 
those of Portland, Perceval, and Liverpool, which followed, 
were as dogged in their resolution to spend the last pound, 
and the last man, if need were, in ridding Europe of the 



30 Ten Englishmen 

conqueror whose existence England had now come to 
regard as a threat against her national independence. 

As his conquests added state after state to the territory 
in which his word was law, Napoleon developed new tac- 
tics against England. He conceived it practicable to 
crush that commercial and manufacturing power by 
excluding her goods from the markets of Europe. This 
** continental system" was inaugurated' in November, 
1806, by the Berlin Decree which closed the ports of 
Europe to British vessels, and declared a paper blockade 
against the British Isles. This policy he forced upon 
nation after nation, to which his conquests extended. 
England retahated by the ** Orders in Council," which 
declared a blockade against the French ports, and author- 
ized the seizure of neutral vessels found trading with 
them. By a naval raid in September, 1807, the British 
swooped down on Denmark and carried off the Danish 
fleet to keep that weapon from falling into the Emperor's 
hands. Two months later, in anticipation of a British 
descent, French armies seized Portugal and entered Spain. 

Up to the entrance of the French into the Spanish 
Peninsula, the protracted hostilities had brought little 
advantage to the British arms except on the sea. It was 
the Peninsular War, precipitated by this fresh encroach- 
ment of Napoleon, which first gave a laurel to the English 
arms and prepared Wellington for Waterloo. Napoleon 
and the soldier who was to overthrow him were born in 
the same year. The babe whom the world was to know 
as the Duke of Wellington was christened in Dublin in 
May, 1769, by the name of Arthur Wesley. (In 1798 
the older spelling of the family name, Wellesley, was 
resumed.) He was descended from English ancestors 



Wellington, and Struggle with Napoleon 31 

long resident in Ireland, and was himself the fourth son 
of the Earl of Mornington. The death of the Earl when 
Arthur was but twelve years old left the family in slender 
circumstances. Richard, the eldest son and successor to 
the title, had achieved high university honors, but Arthur 
was a slow student of everything save music and mathe- 
matics. After a brief residence at Eton he entered a 
higher institution at Angers, in France. His mother 
thought him worth nothing better than "food for powder," 
and at eighteen he obtained a commission as ensign in the 
Seventy-sixth Regiment of British Foot. Family influ- 
ence and the purchase of his ** steps" soon made him a 
lieutenant-colonel (1793) of the Thirty-third Foot. He 
had already been three years a member of the Irish House 
of Commons, where, however, he did not distinguish 
himself. 

England was now at war with France, and Colonel 
Arthur Wellesley's first foreign service was in 1794, when 
his regiment was sent to the support of the Duke of York, 
who was near the end of his ignominious campaign in the 
Low Countries. In March, 1795, he was back in Eng- 
land, disgusted with the incompetency of his superiors. 
Of the value of this experience he afterward said, "Why, 
I learned what one ought not to do, and that is always 
something." At the time, however, he was less philo- 
sophical, and after consulting with his wise elder brother 
as to the future possibilities of distinction in military life, 
he applied for a civil office under the Lord Lieutenant of 
England. 

Instead of droning out his hfe in a treasury clerkship, 
Wellesley found a more strenuous career abroad. In the 
autumn of 1795 his regiment was ordered to India, where 



32 Ten Englishmen 

he arrived in February, 1797. A year later his already 
famous brother Richard, Lord Mornington, came out as 
Governor-general. The brothers were sincerely devoted 
to each other, and co-operated cordially in the important 
operations which followed. The English possessions in 
India were then limited to the coast regions, the kings and 
princes of the states of the interior being variously bound 
to the East India Company by treaty engagements. The 
news of the victorious progress of the French arms in 
Europe lost nothing by repetition in the bazaars of Hin- 
dustan, and emissaries of France were not wanting to stir 
the native princes against England. Bonaparte's expe- 
dition to Egypt in 1798 revealed his intention to attack 
England through her Indian realm. In February, 1799, 
the Governor-general declared war against Tippoo, Sultan 
of Mysore, a powerful prince, who had been plotting in 
the French interest. The younger Weliesley had con- 
tributed much to the efficient organization of the army 
which was to invade the Sultan's territory, and after the 
fall of Seringapatam he distinguished himself by his firm 
and orderly administration of the conquered domain. In 
1802, the year of the Peace of Amiens, he was made a 
major-general. When the news of the treaty with France 
reached him, his opinion was emphatically expressed: **It 
establishes the French power over Europe, and when we 
shall have disarmed we shall have no security except in 
our own abjectness." The conquest of Mysore left only 
the Mahratta confederacy undominated by British author- 
ity. These states, a vast domain in western and central 
India, having quarreled among themselves, applied to the 
British for aid. General Wellesley secured the close alh- 
ance of one party, and as commander-in-chief, took the 



Wellington, and Struggle with Napoleon ^^ 

field against the others. On the 23d of September, 1803, 
he found himself with seven thousand five hundred men in 
the presence of the Mahratta host of fifty thousand men 
with one hundred and twenty-eight guns. Retreat was 
difficult, speedy reinforcement impossible. The young 
major-general determined an attack immediately, and 
handling his little army with great skill and intrepid cour- 
age, he routed the enemy in the great victory of Assaye, 
which broke the Mahratta power. For his exploits he 
received the thanks of King and Parliament, and was 
dubbed a Knight of the Bath. 

General Sir Arthur Wellesley returned to England in 
1805, after seven years absence in India. On his way he 
touched at the Isle of St. Helena, and took note of its 
beautiful scenery and salubrious climate. Doubtless the 
impression then made was recalled ten years later, when 
it became necessary to select a safe residence for his 
defeated foe. To one who expressed surprise that a man 
of his solid achievement should receive but a subordinate 
post as that to which he was assigned on his return to 
England, General Wellesley said, *T am 7117/1 71111k wallah^ 
as we say in the East. I have eaten of the King's salt 
and therefore I conceive it to be my duty to serve with 
zeal and cheerfulness when and wherever the King or his 
government may think fit to employ me." This expres- 
sion explains his lifelong attitude toward the crown. He 
considered himself its * 'retained servant." 

It was two years before his talents were properly util- 
ized. Meanwhile he was member of Parliament and 
secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The Penin- 
sular War was his opportunity. Napoleon had sent 
Marshal Junot to Lisbon with an army to seize the coun- 



34 Ten Englishmen 

try and force it into his continental system, the royal 
family retiring to Brazil as he advanced. At almost the 
same time, by a series of conscienceless machinations, he 
had compelled the King of Spain to abdicate, and had 
occupied Madrid and the fortresses of the northern prov- 
inces. In spite of popular risings against the French, 
Napoleon made his brother Joseph King of Spain. At 
once revolt flamed out among the common people, and the 
insurrection spread through both kingdoms, and was 
accepted in England as an invitation to come to their 
relief. 

Pitt had foreseen amid the shadows of the defeat of 
Austerlitz that the Iberian Peninsula might be the final 
field of resistance to Napoleon, and now events had 
brought his successors to the same view. It was access- 
ible by England's ocean highway, its people were high- 
spirited, and impatient of foreign domination, and a 
successful campaign there w^ould threaten the French 
flank. In June, l8o8, an expedition was dispatched to 
the aid of the Spanish and Portuguese insurrectionists, 
and the command was given to Lieutenant-General Sir 
Arthur Wellesley. The night before he left London he 
said to the friend who interrupted his reverie, "Why, I 

am thinking of the French 'Tis enough to make 

one thoughtful. But no matter; my die is cast. They 
may overwhelm me, but I don't think they will out-ma- 

noeuver me I suspect all the continental armie$ 

were more than half-beaten before the battle was begun. 
I at least will not be beaten beforehand." 

The qualities which fitted this officer for the heavy 
work in hand were those which had been developed and 
tested in India. He was, first of all, a worker of sur- 



Wellington, and Struggle with Napoleon 35 

passing industry and the closest application. Where 
others were brilliant, he was thorough. No commander 
ever left less to chance or to the inspiration of the moment. 
He prepared for his campaigns by subjecting his troops 
to the most thorough drill and by providing them properly 
with all the munitions of war. His troops were shaped 
by incessant care and pains into a perfect weapon, the use 
of which he perfectly understood. Further than this, his 
experience in India, where conditions had made him the 
responsible administrator of vast native states, made him 
the right man to conduct a campaign in the peninsula, 
where, between the French and the Nationalists, civil 
administration had fallen into great disorder, and where all 
sorts of extraordinary tasks devolved upon the British 
representative. His management of his uncertain allies, 
the guerrilla chiefs, and his relations with the revolutionary 
"juntas" called for qualities as rare as those which 
defeated one after another of Napoleon's marshals and 
finally worsted the great captain himself. Thoroughness 
of preparation, the ability to see things as they are, to 
wait patiently, decide promptly, and act with energy — 
these are perhaps simple military virtues, but they bring 
success, and they were in high degree the possession of 
the young Indian officer, who was now to undertake a diffi- 
cult campaign in a foreign country. The event proved 
that with such qualities a general may compass the most 
difficult tasks, though he may be *'cold" in temperament, 
and incapable of kindling in the breasts of his men that 
passionate personal devotion which some hold to be the 
true test of a great soldier. 

Wellesley disembarked his expeditionary force in 
August, at Mondego Bay, a hundred miles north of Lis- 



36 Ten Englishmen 

bon, which Junot held with twelve thousand men. Junot 
advanced to meet the English, and at Vimiero Wellesley 
met and defeated the first of Napoleon's marshals. Before 
the close of the day the arrival of a superior officer termi- 
nated Wellesley 's command. He had, however, inflicted 
such a blow that Junot was glad to sign a convention 
which permitted him to evacuate the kingdom. Welles- 
ley returned to England. 

In the spring of 1809 Wellesley was back in Lisbon. 
He had persuaded the government that Portugal could be 
defended and made the base of operations which should 
eventually clear the entire peninsula of the French. They 
had intrusted the chief command to him, and now left him 
free for four years to press his campaigns to the Spanish 
capital, and thence to the Pyrenees and beyond upon the 
very soil of France itself. 

He was watched by two French armies. Soult was at 
Oporto in the north, and Victor far up the Tagus Valley, 
between him and Madrid. By an unexpected movement, 
having surprised Soult and sent him headlong beyond the 
frontier, Wellesley crossed the border in quest of Victor. 
The armies clashed at Talavera, in the last days of June, in 
one of the most stubbornly contested engagements of the 
war. The English kept possession of the field, and, 
though Joseph Bonaparte congratulated his soldiers upon 
the glory of the "victory," he knew in his heart, as his 
greater brother told him to his face, that the battle was a 
French defeat. 

Conditions were not yet suited for an advance into 
Spain, where the French were gathering in enormous 
force, with instructions from Napoleon to "advance upon 
the English, pursue them without cessation, beat them. 



Wellington, and Struggle with Napoleon 37 

and fling them into the sea." To insure his forces against 
the execution of this mandate Wellesley constructed a cres- 
cent of earthworks about Lisbon, "the Hues of Torres 
Vedras," within which he might take refuge, and under 
cover of which, as a last resort, his forces might be safely 
re-embarked for retreat. The veteran Massena was 
selected by the Emperor to drive the English out of Por- 
tugal. As he advanced, in the summer of 1810, Wellesley 
retired before him, and just when the pursuer believed the 
game was his, he was confronted by the impregnable lines 
of Torres Vedras, whose position and strength was all 
unsuspected. All winter Massena hovered about the 
hole, but the fox was safe in his earth, and in the spring 
the old hound agam turned his face toward Spain, with 
the English on his trail. 

For another year the English general, who, in honor 
of Talavera, had been raised to the peerage as Viscount 
Wellington, was engaged in reducing the French garrisons, 
and forming into useful auxiiliary troops the raw Portu- 
guese who had risen against the invader. The capture of 
the fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo (January, 1 8 12) opened 
the road to Spain. So important was this point that the 
captor was rewarded for it with an English earldom, a 
Spanish dukedom, and a Portuguese marquisate. In 
early summer Wellington's army took the offensive on 
Spanish soil. Marshal Marmont's army at Salamanca in 
the north was his first objective. The clash came on the 
22d of July. On the second day of the battle of Sala- 
manca the English infantry crushed the weakened center 
of Marmont's line, the marshal was wounded, his army 
hurriedly retreated. On the 12th of August the English 
were in Madrid. The Bonaparte King fled from his capi- 



38 Ten Englishmen 

tal, whose citizens, intoxicated with joy, crowded around 
the EngHsh general, hung on his stirrups, touched his 
clothes, and throwing themselves on the earth, blessed 
him aloud as the friend of Spain! 

The work of deliverance was by no means complete. 
Wellington's army was small, and the support of the 
Spanish auxiharies was not to be counted upon. Though 
the Emperor was in Russia, some of his best marshals and 
a powerful army were opposed to the English in Spain. 
It was only the most skilful management, in which caution 
and audacity were blended, that brought Wellington safely 
out of his dangerous position in Spain, and allowed him 
to retire to winter quarters on the Portuguese frontier. 
The effect of the campaign upon the Spaniards had been 
to give him the chief command of the national forces. 
England realizing that the general whose coming had 
been so long awaited was found at last, made Welling- 
ton a marquis, and voted him the thanks of the Lords and 
Commons and one hundred thousand pounds, besides 
sending him the reinforcements of cavalry which he 
needed for his broad plan of operations for the next 
campaign. 

The winter of 18 12-13, which Wellington devoted to 
his comprehensive preparations, saw the disastrous retreat 
of Napoleon from the snows of Russia. From that blow 
he never recovered, and thenceforward he could do little 
to support his eagles in the peninsula. The recall of 
Soult further weakened the resistance. In May, Welling- 
ton bade farewell to Portugal and recrossed the Spanish 
frontier, advancing on Madrid from the northwest. The 
King and his army retired toward France. Wellington 
overtook them at Vittoria (June 21) and fought them, 



Wellington, and Struggle with Napoleon 39 

capturing their guns, baggage, and Spanish plunder, 
though Joseph and the main French army escaped north- 
ward through the passes of the Pyrenees. 

Soult came posthaste from Dresden to resume com- 
mand. He found the army of Spain encamped on French 
soil, led it through the passes again, but the Enghsh could 
not be dislodged. In October an Enghsh general for the 
first time since Napoleon came to power stood on French 
soil at the head of an invading army. Soult, forced away 
from Bayonne, fell back on Toulouse, where Wellington 
dealt him another blow on April 14, 1 8 14. That blow 
was the last. Just one week earlier Napoleon, driven 
back from the Rhine to Paris by the allied armies on the 
northeast, had abdicated the throne which had cost so 
much blood and treasure. 

Wellington visited Paris and Madrid, and then returned 
to London. Five years earlier he had left England as Sir 
Arthur Wellesley ; he came back Duke of Wellington. His 
own remark upon his campaigns contrasts strangely with 
the spirit of the Frenchman, whose best generals he had 
out-manoeuvered and overwhelmed. He was "a conqueror 
without ambition," he said. "All the world knew that I 
desired nothing but to beat the French out of Spain and 
then go home to my own country, leaving the Spaniards 
to manage theirs as they pleased." England lavished 
honors upon the hero of the Peninsular War. Parhament 
thanked him, granted him four hundred thousand pounds. 
He carried the sword of state on the occasion of the peace 
celebration in St. Paul's Cathedral. London banqueted 
him in Guildhall. 

For a summer and a winter the Duke represented Eng- 
land at Paris and Vienna where the states of Europe were 



40 Ten Englishmen 

wrangling over the restoration of the continent to its ante- 
bellum condition. When Napoleon escaped from Elba 
and was welcomed to Paris by his former marshals, Europe 
turned to Wellington to deliver her from the new peril. 
On the 25th of March, 181 5, Austria, Russia, Prussia, 
and Great Britain formed the Quadruple Alliance, binding 
themselves to maintain the treaty recently signed at Paris, 
and not to lay down arms until "Buonaparte should be 
placed absolutely beyond possibility of exciting disturbance 
and renewing his attempts to possess himself of the 
supreme power in France." 

The Duke arrived at Brussels on the 4th of April to 
take command of the allied army. Instead of the grand 
armies of the Quadruple Alliance he found a composite 
force of some twenty-five thousand English, Dutch, Bel- 
gians, Brunswickers, and Hanoverians. The Prussians 
had thirty thousand men within co-operating distance. 
In comparison with the thoroughly disciplined army which 
he had developed and wielded so skilfully in the peninsula 
this force cut a sorry figure. The field-marshal's bitterest 
complaint was that his government had not even provided 
him with the admirable staff which five years of service 
had made so familiar with his methods and desires. On 
the very verge of the campaign he wrote, '*I have an 
infamous army, very weak and ill equipped, and a very 
inexperienced staff." While the armies of Austria and 
Russia were advancing upon France the Emperor was 
setting an enormous force in the field. It was his 
purpose to fall upon the army on the Belgian frontier 
before the other allies could enter France. For the inva- 
sion of Belgium he selected one hundred and twenty-five 
thousand men. Prince Bliicher, commanding the Prus- 




THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 



Wellington, and Struggle with Napoleon 41 

sians, now had as many men, while WelHngton, his ally, 
commanded some ninety-three thousand, of whom barely 
one-third were British. Five-sixths of the British infantry 
had never been under fire. 

Napoleon's plan was to thrust his army between Bliicher 
and Wellington and defeat them in succession. On the 
evening of June 15th, news was brought to the Duke at 
Brussels that the enemy had passed the frontier and were 
engaging the Prussian outposts. He at once gave the 
necessary orders for the advance, and after midnight 
showed himself at the now famous ball of the Duchess of 
Richmond. At eleven the next forenoon he was at Quatre- 
Bras, where his army was engaged in beating off an attack 
by Marshal Ney, while Bliicher was being pounded by 
Napoleon a few miles to the eastward at Ligny. Both 
the allies retreated, but instead of separating as Napoleon 
hoped and believed, they retired along converging Hues, 
the English to Waterloo, the Prussians to Wavre, the 
positions being connected by a roadway. Through the 
rain of Saturday, June 17th, Wellington disposed his 
sixty-nine thousand men and one hundred and fifty-six 
guns on both sides of the Brussels highway, along which 
Napbleon advanced on the morrow with seventy-two thou- 
sand men and two hundred and forty cannon. The action 
opened near noon on the 1 8th, the French making a vain 
effort to carry the Chateau of Hougomont on the British 
right. Next an army corps was hurled at the center, only 
to be stopped by Wellington's cavalry with appalling loss. 
In the afternoon the Emperor delivered a series of cavalry 
attacks upon the allied center. Twelve thousand horsemen 
thundered up the gentle slope past the English guns, only 
to break against the bayonet-hedged squares of the 



42 Ten Englishmen 

infantry. At the end of eight hours' fighting the French 
center had advanced to within sixty yards of the British 
position, but the hne still held, and Bliicher's Prussians 
were rapidly coming up on the right flank. Marshal 
Grouchy having failed to prevent this fatal manoeuver, 
Napoleon shot his last bolt, sending Ney with the Old 
Guard against the British right. But "the bravest of the 
brave had fought his last battle," and as his ten battalions 
were flung back in disorder, Wellington gave the word to 
his whole line to advance. The rush of his reserves of 
horse scattered the remnants of the tired .and disheartened 
host. The wreck of the grand army drifted back over the 
border, and the dispirited Emperor, having risked every- 
thing in one bold experiment and lost, hastened to Paris, 
and after a vain attempt to rally the nation once more 
about his standard, abandoned hope and sought refuge on 
board the **Bellerophon," British man-of-war (July 15, 
1815). At nine o'clock in the evening of the memorable 
day of Waterloo, Blucher and WeUington met. The griz- 
zled Prussian kissed the grave Englishman on both cheeks 
in the exuberance of his joy. Without the timely support 
of his Germans, that day might have had another ending. 

Waterloo was the last act of the Napoleonic struggle. 
The Emperor went into exile at St. Helena to fret against 
his prison bars and curse his keepers. Wellington had 
already exhausted his country's sources of honor. All 
that Parliament could do was to present the fine estate of 
Strathfieldsaye to him and his heirs on condition of pre- 
senting a French tri-color flag to the sovereign at Windsor 
on each anniversary of the 1 8th of June. 

Wellington was above all a soldier, but for tne remain- 
ing thirty-six years of his lifetime his country had httle 



Wellington, and Struggle with Napoleon 43 

employment for the sword. Yet the esteem in which he 
was held, not only for his military achievements, but for 
his honesty and common sense, made him a conspicuous 
figure in public affairs for most of his long hfe. After 
Waterloo he remained in France, where his moderation 
saved Paris from the vengeance of the continental com- 
manders. Of the allied army of occupation which remained 
in France until 1818, Welhngton was commander-in-chief. 
As head of the commission which passed upon the foreign 
claims for damages arising from the protracted wars, his 
fairness again saved France from her rapacious creditors. 
His work on the continent done, Wellington returned 
to England to enter the public service as a member of 
Lord Liverpool's cabinet. In 1822 he was sent to repre- 
sent Great Britain at the Congress of the Powers at 
Verona, where he frustrated Russia's intention of inter- 
fering in the affairs of Spain. In 1826 he was sent to 
Russia on a special mission from Canning to secure the 
consent of the new Czar to English intervention in behalf 
of the insurgent Greeks. On the death of the King's 
brother, the Duke of York, he became commander-in-chief 
of the army. Disagreement with Canning led him to 
withdraw from that premier's cabinet in April, 1827, but 
in the following January (1828), he himself became Prime 
Minister, with Robert Peel as Home Secretary. With all 
his Tory loyalty to the Church his administration broke its 
ancient monopoly. In 1828 he allowed the Test and Cor- 
poration Acts to pass, opening the way for Protestant 
dissenters to hold civil and military office. In 1829 he 
concluded that relief of the Roman Cathohcs of Ireland 
from their political disabilities could no longer be post- 
poned. Peel had been even more reluctant than his 



44 Ten Englishmen 

chief — a native of Ireland — to reach this decision, but the 
growing power of the **CathoHc Association," the popular 
organization which the agitator O'Connell had called 
into existence, compelled immediate action. The King- 
was reluctantly brought to see the expediency of the act, 
which, when proposed by Pitt a generation before, had so 
stiffened the neck of his father, George III. Perhaps no 
minister whose prestige was less than that of the hero of 
Waterloo could have won the consent of the Hanoverian 
monarch, whose dynasty had been brought to England for 
the defense of the Protestant faith. The bill for the 
emancipation of the Catholics slid easily through the 
Commons, though the stiff old Tories who had counted 
Wellington as of their number voted solidly against it. 
Even the Lords failed to make the expected resistance, 
and accepted the measure by a vote of two to one despite 
the known preference of the court and clergy, and a bom- 
bardment of Protestant petitions. One peer had thus 
predicted the result to Macaulay, who was in doubt as to 
how the Duke would explain the bill and justify his change 
of front: **0, that will be simple enough. He'll say, 'My 
Lords! Attention! Right about face! Quick march!' 
and the thing will be done." King George tried to slip 
out of his pledges, but the Iron Duke held him fast, and 
the 13th of April, 1829, the act became a law. It is the 
chief monument of the Wellington administration. 

Against the next great question, the reform of Parlia- 
ment, he set himself resolutely, expressing his opposition 
in such unmistakable terms as to forfeit at once his office 
and his popularity. The London mob stoned his windows, 
but could not change his attitude toward legislation which 
he thought pernicious to the welfare of his country. He 



Wellington, and Struggle with Napoleon 45 

carried on his opposition when the reform bills began to 
come up from the Commons into the Peers' chamber. 
On the 1 8th of June, 1832, the seventeenth anniversary of 
Waterloo, he was pelted with stones and dirt by a yelling 
mob in the streets of London, and only saved from 
rougher handling by two old soldiers who walked at his 
stirrups and held back the ruffians until the police came to 
the rescue. The Reform Bill had already become a law, 
Wellington and his irreconcilable friends, perceiving the 
futility of further obstruction, absenting themselves from 
the chamber rather than vote contrary to their consciences. 
Even after the reformed Parliament had come into exist- 
ence this arch aristocrat could see nothing but evil in the 
outlook. He complained that the House of Commons 
"had swallowed up all the power of the state," and he 
was not far wrong. Still his loyalty to the crown, and his 
determination that the government should be upheld kept 
him from merely factious opposition and made him a use- 
ful servant of the nation. The leader of the majority in 
the House of Lords, he declined to use his position to 
thwart the purposes of the popular House. **I do not 
choose," he said, in 1834, when the Poor Law Bill was 
up, **I do not choose to be the person to excite a quarrel 
between the two Houses of Parliament. The quarrel will 
occur in its time; and the House of Lords will probably 
be overwhelmed. But it shall not be owing to any action 
of mine." It was in this year that a singular occurrence 
showed his unique place in the confidence of King and 
nation. In November the King dismissed the Melbourne 
ministry and called on the Duke to form another. The 
latter perceived that no Tory but Peel could manage the 
Commons, but Peel was then traveling on the Continent. 



46 • Ten Englishmen 

The Duke accordingly undertook to carry on the govern- 
ment alone until that leader's return. And for five weeks 
he was the cabinet, holding all the high offices — Treasury, 
Home, Foreign, and Colonial — himself, so as not to 
embarrass his successor by making appointments. The 
Whigs raised a great outcry against this one-man power, 
but the people rather admired the industry of the veteran 
who rose at six o'clock in the morning and went the 
rounds of the departments performing the routine duties 
with the greatest industry and fidelity and steadily refusing 
to use his enormous power and patronage for personal or 
factional rule. Sir Herbert Maxwell, the Duke's latest 
biographer, has attempted to describe the Duke's political 
creed by coining a term. He was not "an impracticable 
Tory, ' ' as the Reformers would name him, nor yet a mere 
**Tory opportunist," as sterner Tories would have it. 
"He was a possiblist rather than an opportunist, prepared 
to resist change as long as possible, but to give way rather 
than throw the power into the hands of those (Radicals) 
who, he honestly believed, would wreck the realm." 

Wellington was foreign secretary in Peel's first cabinet 
(1834-35), and commander-in-chief in the second (1841- 
46). His lifelong political theory is well exemplified by 
his words when notified by the Prime Minister, in Novem- 
ber, 1845, of his intention to suspend the Corn Laws, an 
act most offensive to his party and social class. "My 
only object in public life is to support Sir Robert Peel's 
administration of the government for the Queen. A good 
government for the country is more important than Corn 
Laws." In much the same words the aged leader 
addressed the House of Lords in behalf of Peel's Corn 
Bill, and though bitterly opposed to the measure, they 



Wellington, and Struggle with Napoleon 47 

accepted his guidance and gave the bill their assent. In 
1848 there were many who believed that the country was 
on the brink of a revolution. The Chartist agitation was 
culminating in the presentation of the great petition to 
Parliament, and half a milhon men were to escort it from 
Kennington to Westminster. WelHngton was nearing his 
seventy-ninth birthday, but the government turned to him 
to organize the defense of the capital against mob vio- 
lence. The old warrior-blood warmed in his veins, and 
he amazed the ministers by the clearness of his plans and 
the energy and decision with which he carried them out. 
Though the affair passed off without disturbance, being at 
all times under police control, so thorough were the Duke's 
preparations as to have made a successful revolution 
impossible. 

To his latest year the Duke continued to attend the 
sessions of the Lords, and his opinions were listened to 
with respectful attention. It was fitting that his last 
speech there should have been in a military debate, and 
that in urging the value of militia organization, he should 
have drawn upon his experience with the raw Hanoverian 
levies in the Waterloo campaign. This was in the summer 
of 1852. On the evening of the 13th of the following 
September he retired in his usual condition of health. 
The next morning he was seized with sudden illness and 
did not live the dav out. 

Enough has been said in this brief sketch of his public 
career to show that the Duke of Wellington, though 
among the greatest of English soldiers, cannot rank 
high among English statesmen, although he served his 
country in the highest offices. If read in detail the record 
of his career in the Cabinet and in the House of Lords 



48 Ten Englishmen 

would confirm the reader in the opinion that his only sure 
title to greatness rests in his military career. It has often 
been said that, had he died in the moment of victory as 
did Nelson, it would have been happier for his fame. But 
it must not be forgotten that the years of his political 
action were those in which England was passing through 
the stages of a social and political revolution, in which 
the democracy was rising to power and the landed aristoc- 
racy was losing prestige and privilege. That this revolu- 
tion was accomplished without such a convulsion as 
marked this struggle in other European kingdoms may 
have been due, in some degree at least, to the fact that the 
leader of the aristocratic party was held in honor by the 
masses of the nation. Moments of exasperation there 
were when the bitterness of popular feeling against the 
obstructionists in the House of Lords vented itself upon 
the Duke, but the prevailing feeling toward him was one 
of pride in his military achievements and confidence in his 
honesty. As McCarthy has well said, **His victories 
belonged to the past. They were but tradition, even to 
middle-aged persons in the Duke's later years. But he 
was regarded still as the embodiment of the national hero- 
ism and success — a modern St. George in a tightly but- 
toned frock coat and white trousers!" 



Wellington, and Struggle with Napoleon 49 



QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 

1. What share had England taken in the French struggle 
previous to 1802? 

2. What did the Peace of Amiens prove to be? 

3. In what ways and with what success did England 
struggle against Napoleon up to the Peninsular War? 

4. Describe the early life of Wellesley. 

5. What military experience did he gain in India? 

6. What policy did Napoleon pursue in Spain and 
Portugal? 

7. What qualities fitted Wellesley to command the Penin- 
sular Campaign? 

8. Describe Wellington's campaigns up to 1813? 

9. How was the Peninsular War finally closed? 

10. Describe the struggle at Waterloo. 

11. What important acts relative to church questions were 
enacted under Wellington's ministry? 

12. What was his attitude toward the Reform Bill? 

13. What curious instance of "one-man power" did he 
illustrate in 1834? 

14. How was his character shown in his position regarding 
the Corn Laws ? 

15. How does he rank among great English leaders? 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Life of Wellington. By W. Herbert Maxwell. 

History of the Penijisular War. By Sir William F. P. 
Napier. 

Selected Despatches of the Dtike of Wellington. Edited by 
S. J. Owen. 

The Campaign of Waterloo. By John C. Ropes. 

The best recent " Life of Wellington " is by Sir Herbert 
Maxwell. 2 vols. London. The great " History of the Penin- 
sular War" is by Sir Wm. Napier. 



Ill 

GEORGE CANNING AND EUROPEAN AFFAIRS 

[George CANNiNG,born, London, April 11,1770; died, London, 
Augusts, 1827; educated at Eton and Oxford; Member of 
Parliament, 1793; 1797, editor of Anti-Jacobin periodical; 
1807-09, Secretary for Foreign Affairs ; 1809, duel with Castle- 
reagh; 1814-16, Ambassador at Lisbon; 1817-20, President 
of India Board; 1822, appointed Governor-General of India; 
1822-27, Minister for Foreign Affairs; 1827, Prime Minister 
and First Lord of the Treasury. Buried in Westminster 
Abbey.] 

During the first twenty years of the nineteenth century 
Great Britain, though possessing the most liberal consti- 
tution of any of the powers, was the consistent ally of the 
absolute monarchies of Europe. Strange as the situation 
at first appears, it is not difficult to trace the causes which 
produced it. 

For the explanation of most of the phenomena of 
European history in the first half of the century the stu- 
dent must turn back to the French Revolution. The 
social and pohtical ideas which were at the bottom of that 
great upheaval were in part suggested by the success of 
free institutions in constitutional England, where parlia- 
mentary government had been highly developed while 
France lay bound by her Bourbon despots. A large body 
of Englishmen numbering some of the greatest names in 
politics and literature sympathized deeply with the earlier 
manifestations of the revolutionary spirit. 

50 



George Canning and European Affairs 51 

" Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, 
But to be young was very heaven" 

sang Wordsworth, whose youthful enthusiasm over that 
dawn was soon chilled by the crimes which were commit- 
ted in the name of Liberty — the slaughter of the royal 
pair, the reign of the guillotine, and the enthronement of 
reason in the place of God. The tide of opinion in Eng- 
land was turned by these scenes of lawless license, and 
when, in 1793, the revolutionary government of France 
offered its armed aid to all oppressed peoples, England, 
led by William Pitt, joined Austria and Prussia in a war 
to suppress the dangerous republic, and restore the Bour- 
bon dynasty to its ancient throne. Seven successive 
coalitions were thus formed by English diplomacy 
between 1793 and 181 5 to meet the changing phases of 
the struggle which, after 1803, had ceased to be monarchy 
against democracy and had become a universal war for 
self-preservation from Napoleon, the military genius who 
had made himself the dictator of revolutionary France. 
When the great war seemed to have come to an end, in 
1 814- 1 5, and Napoleon was finally caged at St. Helena, 
England found herself naturally taking a principal part in 
re-estabhshing the Bourbon Louis XVIIL on the throne 
of France. She had stood with the other powers so long 
against a common foe that she continued to stand with 
them now in undoing, as far as might be, the work which 
the disturbing and renovating conqueror had wrought in 
the kingdoms which he had overrun. Not only were the 
old boundaries generally restored and the exiled monarchs 
brought back to replace the upstart Bonaparte kings, but 
the constitutional freedom which the French arms had 
introduced in many parts of Europe was annulled wherever 



^2 Ten Englishmen 

possible. The Congress of Vienna, in which the aUied 
powers formulated their policy, did its best to turn back 
the shadow twenty years on the dial of progress, and 
England either joined in the effort or stood by consenting 
to the death of so many newly won liberties. 

When the allied sovereigns were met in Napoleon's 
capital after Waterloo, the Czar of Russia conceived a 
thought which seemed to him to be an inspiration. In 
the ecstasy of the hour of deliverance from the sword 
which had been the nightmare of the continent for a gener- 
ation Alexander proposed to his fellow potentates a 
covenant binding them to be governed by the principles of 
Christian justice and charity in their deahngs with their 
own subjects and in their mutual relations. Sincere and 
pious as the Czar undoubtedly was, this agreement, which 
was accepted by the other monarchs, excepting George 
IV. of England, did not produce the results which one 
might suppose from its name, the Holy Alliance. It was 
used not only to stifle the spirit of liberty in western 
Europe, but its baleful influence was felt in Italy, Spain, 
and Greece. In effect it was a trades-union in which the 
aUied crowned-heads undertook to stifle popular liberty 
wherever it showed signs of life. When Alexander 
explained his proposal to the English commissioners at 
Paris they could scarcely keep a straight face at its absurd- 
ity. Yet though England refused to become a member 
of the Holy Alliance, she did allow herself for a period of 
several years to be ruled by its decisions, or at least to 
allow them to be enforced without a protest. 

Such in brief was the chain of events which associated 
the foreign policy of England with that of the Holy Alli- 
ance. The briUiant statesman who broke away from this 



George Canning and European Affairs 53 

foreign policy and led England out upon a line of inde- 
pendent action was George Canning. 

The future Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister was 
born in London, April 11, 1770. His father was an 
Englishman from the north of Ireland, who had read law, 
but failed to get clients, and had succeeded at nothing, from 
pamphleteering to selling wine. He died on his babe's 
first birthday. The widow married an actor and essayed 
a stage career. What would have become of little George 
had he remained in his mother's company is an inter- 
esting speculation. An actor called the attention of his 
uncle, a London banker, to the probability that the lad 
was on the high road to the gallows — to which in those 
days more than one road led. This uncle, Stratford Can- 
ning, assumed the responsibility of the child's education, 
sent him to Eton and later to Oxford. At the former he 
distinguished himself by his witty contributions to **The 
Microcosm" — most famous of school-boy periodicals — and 
at the University where he was graduated, B.A., in 
1 79 1 he won some distinction in literature and oratory, 
taking the University prize with his Latin poem. At 
Oxford he passed through the ^'blissful dawn" of which 
Wordsworth sang, and was an enthusiastic admirer of the 
French Revolution of 1789 and of the British Whigs who 
supported it — Fox, Sheridan, and their sort. He came 
up to London as the tide was turning, and his own opinion 
was among the first to change. Pitt, the Prime Minister, 
had been apprised of his talent, sent for him, and had 
him "chosen" to the House of Commons, a simple matter 
in those unregenerate days, when the Tory chieftains had 
their pockets full of boroughs. 

Pitt gave Canning a minor government office — he was 



54 Ten Englishmen 

not yet thirty years of age — and treated him almost as a 
son, the young man reciprocating the regard with a really 
filial devotion. He was ambitious for advancement, and 
discontented with his slow promotion. In 1797, in com- 
pany with other choice spirits, he began the publication of 
The Anti-Jacobin, a weekly periodical which for nearly 
a year held up to merciless ridicule that section of the 
British pubhc which still countenanced the ruhng ideas 
of the French Revolution. When the King's refusal 
to yield on the question of Catholic emancipation 
(1801) compelled Pitt to resign. Canning went out of 
office with him. Addington, the stupid mediocrity who 
succeeded Pitt, provoked Canning's pen to fresh lam- 
poons, some of them long remembered for their savage 
personalities. 

When Pitt resumed the premiership, in 1804, to direct 
the new struggle with Napoleon, he again bestowed office 
upon Canning, and when he died, in 1806, Canning 
became the leader of the group of Pittites who endeavored 
to perpetuate his ideas. In 1 807 he entered the cabinet 
in the important capacity of Foreign Secretary. 

As Foreign Secretary under the spiritless premiership 
of the Duke of Portland, Canning was allowed free hand. 
The two years and a half during which he directed the 
foreign office were marked by a succession of moves which 
gave a new aspect to the contest with Napoleon. 

Canning entered upon his duties just as the Fourth 
Coalition was being hammered to pieces, on the same 
anvil which had destroyed the others. By the Treaty of 
Tilsit (July, 1 807), Napoleon prepared to unite the north- 
ern nations in his war on British commerce. Hearing or 
divining his purpose to further this project by seizing the 



George Canning and European Affairs 55 

fleet of Denmark, Canning dispatched an armed force to 
Copenhagen with a demand for the surrender of the 
Danish ships. The order was executed, and the Danish 
vessels were brought back to England, though at the cost 
of a bombardment of the Danish capital. The French Em- 
peror's eye was fastened on the fleet of Portugal as another 
auxiliary, and when the Regent refused to accede to his 
request, Napoleon dispatched Marshal Junot to drive him 
from his kingdom and hold its ports and fortresses against 
England. 

England now stood almost alone, and Napoleon hoped 
to complete her ruinous isolation by destroying her trade 
with Europe. His ** Continental System," which was to 
make the continent commercially independent of Great 
Britain, was foreshadowed in his Berlin Decrees. Fresh 
decrees were now met by fresh Orders in Council,. ''shut- 
ting out from the continent all vessels which had not 
touched at a British port." It was Canning whose 
genius caught at the strategic possibihties of a war in the 
peninsula (Spain-Portugal) as a practical opening on the 
French flank for a final blow at the Napoleonic power. 
Napoleon's interference in the government of Spain by 
dethroning its monarchs and giving the crown to his 
brother Joseph had exasperated that proud nation and 
provoked the spirited people to arm against the intruder. 
The Portuguese were scarcely less bitter against the 
French conqueror. Canning perceived the possibility of 
gaining a foothold in these kingdoms, which were easily 
accessible by sea, and by utilizing the spirit and resources 
of the aroused nations to consolidate a power there 
which would threaten France itself, whose borders the 
great soldier had thus far kept inviolate. How ably Sir 



56 Ten Englishmen 

Arthur Wellesley fulfilled 'Mr. Canning's desire the hfe of 
Wellington has already shown. 

The Peninsular Campaign was scarcely under way 
when Canning and Castlereagh, the War Secretary, quar- 
reled and the former resigned from the cabinet. Yet from 
his place in the House the ex-minister continued manfully 
to uphold the general who was doing England's work in 
Spain. There was need of all the support his genius 
could contribute to this task, for parhament was slow to 
grasp the deep purpose of the campaign, was impatient 
for results, and prone to grumble at the bill of expense. 
Yet in the end Canning enjoyed the satisfaction of point- 
ing to the complete verification of his hopes. He might 
have been Foreign Minister in the Liverpool ministry at its 
outset (1812) had he been willing to acquiesce in the 
leadership of Castlereagh in the House of Commons. 
This would have given him the direction of English policy 
in those critical years in which the Napoleonic empire was 
broken up and European affairs rearranged by the powers 
at Vienna. He lived to regret this as the greatest error 
of his career. He was sufiiciently humbled after four 
years to join the government forces as president of the 
India board, resigning in 1820. In 1821, when on the 
point of going out to India, of which he had been appointed 
governor-general, his prospects suddenly changed. On 
the death of his rival, Castlereagh, Canning became For- 
eign Secretary and leader of the Commons. The prize 
which he had long schemed to secure, and had finally given 
up, suddenly fell into his hand. Canning's mind could 
not but revert to the lost opportunity of 18 12. Not in a 
century would the Foreign Minister again have a world 
to set in order. He wrote to a friend, *^Ten years have 



George Canning and European Affairs 57 

made a world of difference, and have made a very differ- 
ent sort of world to bustle in than that which I should 
have found in 1 8 12. For fame it is a squeezed orange, 
but for public good there is something to do, and I shall 
try — but it must be cautiously — to do it. You know my 
politics well enough to know what I mean when I say 
that for 'Europe' I shall be desirous now and then to 
read 'England.' " The closing sentence was the keynote 
of his policy. For years it had been customary for repre- 
sentatives of the powers to treat all important matters as 
"European questions," and England had become habitu- 
ated to a diplomacy which kept English interests in the 
background for the sake of the commonweal of Europe — 
Europe and the Holy Alliance being synonymous. ''When 
Castlereagh, " said Canning, "got among princes and 
sovereigns at Vienna, he thought he could not be too fine 
and complaisant." 

When Canning began to represent England in her rela- 
tions with foreign countries, he found the Holy Alliance 
in full vigor. In fact, the Czar, Kaiser, and King had just 
met at Laybach (1821) and issued a manifesto declaring 
that "useful and necessary changes in legislation and in 
the administration of states could only emanate from the 
free will and from the intelligent and well-weighed con- 
victions of those whom God has made responsible for 
power. Penetrated with this eternal truth, the sovereigns 
have not hesitated to proclaim it with frankness and vigor. 
They have declared that, in respecting the rights and inde- 
pendence of legitimate power, they regarded as legally null 
and disavowed by the principles which constituted the 
public right of Europe, all pretended reforms operated by 
revolt and open hostihties." In plain terms the three 



58 Ten Englishmen 

monarchs, claiming to rule by divine right, reasserted 
their determination to interfere in the private affairs of any 
state to suppress movements which seemed to their majes- 
ties to be revolutionary. The powers had already acted 
according to this program in Piedmont and Naples, and 
were preparing to interfere in behalf of the Bourbons in 
Spain, the Spaniards in the revolted American republics, 
and the Turks in Greece when Canning came to power. 
To the Congress of Verona, where these and other ques- 
tions were to be considered by the powers, Canning sent 
Wellington to speak for England. In accordance with his 
instructions the duke stood for non-intervention. Europe 
had no business to restore the Bourbon to the throne from 
which the nation had thrust him; on the same principle 
Greece must be allowed to fight out her own cause with 
the Turk; as for the Spanish- American colonies, why they 
were already lost to Spain, and England had recognized 
them as independent states. France undertook to do 
alone for the Spanish monarch what the Holy AlHance 
wished to do in the name of Europe. In this England 
acquiesced, but Russia's attempt to second the French in 
their Spanish project by military support was stopped by 
Canning's threat that such an act would only result in 
England's making the Spanish cause her own. "The 
admission of the jurisdiction of the Holy Alliance over 
Europe was a course which he deemed it vital at almost 
any cost to prevent," says Hill. "The time for Are- 
opagus and the like of that," as Canning put it, "has gone 
by." And again, "What should we have thought of inter- 
ference from foreign Europe when King John granted 
Magna Charta, or of an interposition in the quarrel between 
Charles I. and his ParUament.'"' To bring his colleagues 



George Canning and European Affairs 59 

around to his view, Canning showed them that the inter- 
ference of the Holy AlUance in the affairs of Ireland 
might be justified upon the same grounds on which the 
argument for intervention in Spain was based. The King, 
never too fond of the brilliant commoner, whose presence 
in the ministry he considered scarcely less than a personal 
affront, had the temerity to criticise the policy which was 
so obnoxious to his fellow crowned heads. He thought 
that the English recognition of Spanish-American inde- 
pendence was as wicked as the French alliance in 1778 
with the insurgent English colonists under Washington. 
Canning's recognition of Spanish-American independence 
was a sagacious stroke. It not only gave strength to his 
contention that peoples had a right to decide for them- 
selves who should rule them, without consulting the 
despots of Europe, but its timeliness was masterly. 
Glorifying his own course in one of his most famous 
Parliamentary orations, in December, 1826, he explained 
why he had not joined the Spaniards in making armed 
resistance to the French invasion. He said: "Is the 
Spain of the present day, the Spain of which the states- 
men of the time and William and Anne were so much 
afraid.-* Is it, indeed, the nation whose puissance was 
expected to shake England from her sphere.? No, sir, it 
was quite another Spain — it was the Spain within the 
limits of whose empire the sun never set; it was Spain 
with the Indies which excited the jealousies and alarmed 
the imaginations of our ancestors If France con- 
quered Spain, was it necessary in order to avoid the con- 
sequences of that occupation that we should blockade 
Cadiz? No, I looked another way: I sought the material 
of compensation in another hemisphere. Contemplating 



6o Ten Englishmen 

Spain such as our ancestors had known her, I resolved 
that, if France had Spain, it should not be Spain with the 
Indies. I called the New World into existence to redress 
the balance of the Old!" 

Greece began her struggle for independence in 1 821. 
The heroism which her people displayed in their unequal 
battle with the Turks attracted the attention and sympathy 
of many persons all over the world, especially those who 
saw in the modern Greek the representative of the race 
which had once been the intellectual leader of Europe. 
The powers of the Holy Alliance, however, were inclined 
to regard the outbreak with coldness, seeing in it a fresh 
manifestation of the then growing disposition of European 
peoples to rise against the tyranny of their anointed kings. 
England held aloof from their conferences in regard to the 
matter, trusting to their discordant interests to break up 
their concert of action, since the Russian czar, as the head 
of the Greek faith, might be counted upon in the long run 
to befriend the Greeks, especially as such a step would 
carry the Russian influence into the Balkan Peninsula and 
mark a full stride toward Constantinople, then as now the 
goal of Russian ambition. Canning employed Wellington 
to negotiate an agreement at St. Petersburg for the rescue 
of Greece. Ultimately England, Russia, and France 
signed a protocol which was to establish Greece as a self- 
governing state, tributary to the Porte, but free in matters 
of commerce and religion. In 1827 the three powers 
demanded an armistice looking toward a treaty settlement, 
and threatened to use force to compel a cessation of hos- 
tilities. The Porte defied the powers, and his fleet having 
fired upon the alHed vessels, the battle of Navarino was 
precipitated in October, 1827. The result was the expul- 



George Canning and European Affairs 6 1 

sion of the Turks from the country, and the early estab- 
lishment of the complete independence of the kingdom of 
Greece. Canning did not live to see the consummation 
of his hopes in Greece. His health, which had for several 
years been much enfeebled, gave way completely, and on 
August 8, 1827, he died, at the age of fifty-seven. He 
had then for six months held the highest office in the gift 
of the nation. 

In February, 1827, the illness of Lord Liverpool had 
made it necessary to reorganize the cabinet and choose a 
new Prime Minister. After much hesitation the King sent 
for Canning. Most of his former colleagues declined to 
serve under him because he was a professed pro-Cathohc, 
and they were still of the opinion that the Protestant con- 
stitution of England would be endangered if the Irish 
demand for Roman Catholic emancipation should be 
granted. Others were found to take the place of Welling- 
ton, Peel, Eldon, and the other Tory leaders, and the 
Canning ministry got under way, only to be abruptly halted 
at the grave. The remains of the Prime Minister were 
deposited in Westminster Abbey, where a statue by 
Chantry recalls his manly form and expressive counte- 
nance. 

Even in so slight a sketch as the foregoing, some char- 
acteristics of the man stand forth. Canning's wit, while 
its mordancy cost him many friends, distinguishes him 
among English statesmen. The tal^t which had stood 
him in good stead as boy-editor of "The Microcosm" at 
Eton, and which is to be seen in the slings and arrows 
of "The Anti-Jacobin," he never quite lost. His pen was 
always ready to dash off a scrap of lampooning verse, and 
flashes of wit and extended passages of humor enlivened 



62 Ten Englishmen 

the brilliant orations by means of which he explained and 
defended his' policies in Parliament. As an orator his 
speeches were of exquisite polish, and the voice, gesture, 
countenance and entire bodily presence of the speaker con- 
tributed to their tremendous effect. There were not 
wanting those who criticised his oratory as savoring more 
of the stage than the rostrum, but such persons were 
aristocratic political opponents who would not let the world 
forget that this man whose genius outshone them all was 
the son of a third-rate actress. Be it said to Canning's 
credit that he did not forget his mother, but made her com- 
fort in her declining days the object of his solicitous care. 
Mr. Hill, whose study of Canning has been of great 
assistance in the preparation of these pages, thus goes to 
the heart of his foreign policy: **The principle which 
made Canning the antagonist of the propaganda of French 
principles in Europe during the early part of his political 
life made him during his later years in an equal degree the 
antagonist of the principles of the Holy Alliance which it 
is his great glory as a statesman to have defeated. The 
Holy Alliance endeavored to impose upon other nations 
principles and a law of life not their own. As Canning 
objected to the Holy Alliance, so he would have objected 
to its present secular substitute, the Concert of Europe, 
which simply means the agreement of the great powers to 
inflict their will upon the small ones, not allowing them 
to develop according to their native forces and genius, but 
constraining them to such forms and confining them 
within such limits as suits the convenience of a despotic 
hexarchy of states, or of a majority of them. The coun- 
try which is England at home should be England abroad, 
reserving all its freedom of action. Canning's foreign 



George Canning and European Affairs 6^ 

policy, which was for 'Europe' to read 'England,' and to 
'get rid of Areopagus and all that, ' was sound and states- 
manlike and abundantly justified by its results." 



QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 

1. How did England join with the rest of Europe in undo- 
ing the work of Napoleon ? 

2. Give the chief events in the early life of Canning. 

3. Why did Canning authorize an attack on Denmark ? 

4. What was his relation to the Peninsular War ? 

5. What was his "lost opportunity" of 1812 ? 

6. How did he set forth his plans when he became foreign 
secretary in 1821 ? 

7. What interference in the affairs of Europe did the Holy 
Alliance attempt ? 

8. How did Canning defend his recognition of Spanish- 
American independence ? 

9. What part did England play in the liberation of Greece ? 
10. What were the personal qualities of Canning ? 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

George Canning. Frank H. Hill. 

Poetry of the Anti-Jacobifi. Edited by Charles Edmonds. 



IV 

STEPHENSON AND THE RAILWAY 

[George Stephenson, born, Wylam, near Newcastle, June 9, 
1781; died, August 12, 1848; driver lad in a colliery; at four- 
teen, assistant to his father as fireman of colliery engines; 
at seventeen, engineman; at eighteen, learned to read in 
night school; 1812, enginewright at Killingv^^orth colliery; 
1814, operated his locomotive, "My Lord"; 1822, engineer of 
Stockton and Darlington Railroad (opened 1825); engineer 
of Liverpool and Manchester Railroad (opened 1830); pro- 
duced locomotive "Rocket," capable of thirty miles an 
hour.] 

In a bare room of a laborer's tenement in the colliery 
village of Wylam, in Northumberland, on the 9th day of 
June, 1 78 1, was born a babe to whose mind and hand 
England was to owe as much in future years as to any 
high-born minister of the crown. Indeed, one might trust 
the world to give a verdict in favor of George Stephen- 
son, the founder of the steam railway as against his 
sovereign. King George III. himself. 

The father, the "old Rob" of the village boys, was the 
fireman of the pumping engine at the colliery hard by. 
His father before him — the Stephensons were no pedigree- 
hunters, and traced their line no farther — was a Scotchman 
who, so far as anything was remembered of him, had come 
into the north of England as a gentleman's servant -^ 
Robert was a favorite with the village children, to whom 
he gave the freedom of the fire-room, and was a boon 
companion of his own houseful of boys and girls, kindling 

64 



Stephenson and the Railway 65 

their fancy by his headful of tales, and sharpening their 
observation of the beauties of nature by making them the 
companions of his walks a-field, where the birds and other 
living things were the objects of his pecuhar interest and 
love. 

As soon as little George was old enough to **take 
notice" he must have discovered the railway which ran 
before his father's door, and his earliest responsibilities 
were connected with the oversight of his younger brothers 
and sisters lest in their play they should fall under the 
wheels of the cars or the hoofs of the horses that supplied 
the motive power. The road was a wooden tramway 
along which coal cars were dragged from the mines to 
tidewater. 

The first tramways in the northern coal-fields were 
made by laying a track of planking on wooden sleepers. 
This device was more than a century old when George 
Stephenson was born. In some places this had been 
improved by plating the planks with iron. While the 
Wylam lad was still a barefoot boy, cast-iron rails were 
being introduced in Leicestershire, a wheel having been 
designed with a flange to keep it on the narrow track. 
Thus the railway was brought to a stage which needed 
only the application of steam to its motive power to carry 
it into a new and vastly enlarged phase. 

The fireman's son was set to win his share of the 
family bread before he was ten. He tended a widow's 
cows, led the plow-horses, and hoed turnips before he 
entered a colliery as a breaker-boy, where his task was to 
pick out stones and other foreign substances from the 
fuel. Sixpence a day was the wage. Soon at twopence 
more he was promoted to drive the gin-horse that, circling 



66 Ten Englishmen 

around a capstan, hoisted the buckets of water and coals 
out of the pit. At fourteen he became his father's assist- 
ant in the fire-room at Dewley Burn at a shilhng a day. 
At fifteen he obtained a foreman's position in another 
colHery. At seventeen he had gone over his father's 
head, and had charge of a pumping engine at Water-row 
Pit. When his wages reached twelve shillings a week he 
thought he was **a made man for life," but his ignoble 
content was soon disturbed. Always fascinated by 
machinery, as he was by birds and animals, he made a 
pet of his engines, studying them with a singular fondness, 
and making himself master of their principles and their 
parts. This knowledge prompted him to learn more, 
especially to find out something about the improved 
engines of Boulton & Watt, of which rumors had reached 
the enginemen of the north. To do this he must learn to 
read, an art which he seems to have considered superflu- 
ous until he was eighteen. Never did student work harder 
than Geordie Stephenson at his new task, amazing his 
teachers and his mates by his progress at "the three R's." 
He was now brakesman of a hoisting engine, dividing his 
small leisure between his studies and his cobblery, for he 
added to his earnings by mending shoes. His income was 
now some ninety pounds a year. He saved his first 
guinea and felt himself a rich man. At twenty-one he 
married a farmer's house-servant and went to housekeep- 
ing in a cottage at Wellington Quay. 

It would be a long story, however interesting, to follow 
the young mechanic through the experiences by which he 
won a name in all the North Country as the cleverest of 
''engine doctors," eking out his wages by making lasts, 
mending watches, and even cutting out coats and trousers 



Stephenson and the Railway 67 

for the wives of the pitmen to sew up for their husbands. 
His desire to provide his motherless boy Robert with 
better schooHng than he had enjoyed sharpened his wits 
and added strength to his arm. Fortunately the son 
proved to be not only an apt scholar, but had the rare gift 
of being able to teach others. Whatever he learned in 
the good schools to which his father sent him, he imparted 
to his father. So boy and man progressed together in 
their educational partnership. 

When George Stephenson became chief enginewright 
of the Killingworth collieries at one hundred pounds a 
year he thought he had reached the summit of his ambi- 
tion. The duties of the position made less demand upon 
him for manual labor, and left him time to carry out some 
of his mechanical ideas. He devised new hoists and 
pumps for the mines, and then applied himself to the 
ever-present problem of cheapening the transportation of 
the coals between pit mouth and ship side. One of his first 
improvements of this sort was a gravity railway, so 
arranged that the loaded cars, running down to the river 
by their own weight, furnished the power to draw the 
empty cars to the summit again by cable. 

When George Stephenson took up the problem of per- 
fecting a *^ traveling steam engine" he had the advantage 
of knowing what had been accomplished by other experi- 
menters. For fifty years inventors had been turning out 
steam engines of considerable promise in the model stage, 
but of little practical performance. Indeed, about 1803, 
a Cornishman named Trevithick had produced a loco- 
motive which was used for a time to transport metal and 
ore to the Pen-y-darran iron works in South Wales. The 
heavy engine so damaged the tracks that it was soon dis- 



68 Ten Englishmen 

mounted and degraded to the work of a steam pump. In 
1 8 12 a cog-wheel locomotive, invented by a Mr. Blenkin- 
sop, began running in a colliery a few miles out of Leeds, 
and served very well its purpose to haul heavy trains 
almost as fast as a horse could walk. The next year a 
Derbyshire mechanic produced a *^ Mechanical Traveler," 
the legs of which were moved alternately by steam, but 
the bursting of its boiler on its trial trip put an end to its 
picturesque career of doubtful usefulness. 

One Mr. Blackett, an enterprising collier of Wylam, 
introduced the ideas of Trevithick and Blenkinsop to 
the Tyneside and so brought them under the observant 
eye of the Killingworth enginewright, who had such a 
clever way of smoothing away difficulties in complicated 
machinery. After repeated and costly experiments, Mr. 
Blackett evolved a type of locomotive which, though 
noisy and clumsy, did better work than any of its pre- 
decessors. 

After making a careful study of what had been done 
by others, George Stephenson came to the conclusion that 
he could improve upon the existing locomotive models. 
This was about 1813, when he was about thirty- four years 
old. He said to his friends that ''there was no limit to 
the speed of such an engine, if the works could be made 
to stand." One of his employers. Lord Ravensworth, 
advanced the necessary money for constructing his first 
"Traveling Engine" at West Moor, the colliery black- 
smith undertaking to carry out his designs. Dr. Smiles 's 
description of this locomotive may be reproduced: "The 
boiler was cylindrical of wrought iron, eight feet in length 
and thirty-four inches in diameter, with an internal flue 
tube twenty inches wide passing through it. The engine 



Stephenson and the Railway 69 

had two vertical cylinders of eight inches diameter and 
two feet stroke let into the boiler, working the propelling 
gear with cross heads and connecting rods. The power 
of the two cylinders was combined b)^ means of spur-wheels 
which communicated the motive power to the wheels sup- 
porting the engine on the rail The engine thus 

worked upon what is termed the second motion. The 
chimney was of wrought iron, round which was a chamber 
extending back to the feed pumps, for the purpose of 
heating the water previous to the injection into the boiler. 
The engine had no springs, and was mounted on a wooden 
frame supported on four wheels." The engine made its 
trial trip July 25, 18 14, on which occasion it showed a 
speed of four miles an hour in drawing a load of thirty 
tons. This engine was named ''Bliicher, " after the dis- 
tinguished Prussian field-marshal. 

Blticher was almost immediately improved by its in- 
ventor. First he doubled the steam-making power of its 
boiler by turning the exhaust from the cylinders into the 
smoke-stack, thus creating a forced draught. Second he 
built another engine, in which the tooth-wheel driving 
gear gave way to a simple and direct connection between 
the piston and the driving wheels which rolled upon the 
rails. This type of locomotive, developing some six miles 
an hour, did its work so well in the colliery that it was 
retained, with very slight alterations, for more than half a 
century. The report of its success got abroad slowly, 
and Mr. Stephenson was commissioned to build a railway 
and a number of locomotives for a colliery in another 
shire. The success of this piece of engineering encour- 
aged him in sending his son Robert, a youth of fine 
promise, to Edinburgh to study physical sciences in the 



70 Ten Englishmen 

university, where in his brief residence he took a mathe- 
matical prize. 

The year 1823 marked another forward step for George 
Stephenson and railroads. Two years before a road had 
been chartered to connect the Durham coal-fields with 
tidewater. Stephenson heard of the project, and at once 
proposed to the company to make an iron railroad of the 
new wooden tramway and equip it with his traveling 
engines. His arguments and demonstrations won over 
the skeptical directors. They had their charter amended 
so as to authorize the use of steam as motive power for 
the transport of passengers as well as merchandise. Thus 
began the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the first in 
the world with a passenger charter. The chief engineer 
was George Stephenson, on a salary of five hundred pounds. 
At the same time, with the assistance of the railroad 
people, he founded the locomotive shops at Newcastle. 

The new railroad, the first public line, was opened in 
September, 1825. As its construction progressed, its 
engineer had become increasingly sanguine of success. 
He said to his son Robert at this time: "I venture to tell 
you that I think you will live to see the day when railways 
will supersede almost all other methods of conveyance in 
this country — when mail coaches will go by railway, and 
railroads will become the great highway for the King and 
all his subjects. The time is coming when it will be 
cheaper for a workingman to travel upon a railway than 
to walk on foot. I know there are great and almost 
unsurmountable difficulties to be encountered, but what I 
have said will come to pass as sure as you live. I only 
wish I may live to see the day, though that I can scarcely 
hope for, as I know how slow all human progress is, and 



Stephenson and the Railway 71 

with what difficulty I have been able to get the locomotive 
thus far adopted, notwithstanding my more than ten years' 
successful experiment at Killingworth." 

The first train over the road was such an one as had 
never been seen before. George Stephenson was at the 
lever when the engine pulled out with a string of eight 
cars behind it. One regular passenger coach — the first 
ever built — held the directors, and twenty-one improvised 
passenger ** wagons" carried some six hundred daring 
individuals. Coal and flour filled the other cars. The 
journey was safely accomplished at a speed which is said 
at times to have reached the hitherto unheard of rate of 
twelve miles an hour. The road, with its three Stephen- 
son locomotives and many horses, was successful from the 
first, and its dividends were among the chief inducements 
which led to the next and more important advance in rail- 
road construction, the Liverpool and Manchester line. 

Manchester was the great manufacturing center of the 
industrial England, which the inventions of Arkwright 
and Watt had called into existence. Its port was Liver- 
pool. The natural means of communication between the 
two cities was quite inadequate to the changed conditions. 
In 1 82 1 surveys were made for a tramway, and before the 
Stockton road was completed Stephenson had been 
selected as chief engineer of the new and more ambitious 
enterprise. Yet his assertion that trains could be moved 
between the two cities at twenty miles an hour raised 
serious doubts in many minds as to his sanity. A writer 
in the "Quarterly Review" thought that even though a 
few foolhardy persons might trust themselves to a vehicle 
moving at such speed — twice that of the swiftest stage- 
coaches — Parliament for the general welfare should limit 



72 Ten Englishmen 

the speed of all railways to eight or nine miles an hour, 
as the greatest that could be ventured on with safety. 

It was while the grant of a charter to this Liverpool 
and Manchester Railway was being discussed in a com- 
mittee of the House of Commons that the shrewd North 
Country engineer first faced the trained Parliamentary 
lawyers. He had been cautioned to keep his figures for 
speed within the most moderate limits so as not to preju- 
dice the company's case, but his belief in his own inven- 
tion mastered his restraint, though as he afterward said, 
he did his best **to keep the engine down to ten miles an 
hour." In fact, his daring prediction of twelve miles per 
hour struck the learned counsel with horror. They 
objected that horses would fly in terror from such a mon- 
ster. He replied that horses had been known to shy at 
wheelbarrows. They tried to make him admit that the 
wheels would slip on the smooth rails, but he knew that 
they would bite without teeth. One of the committee 
said, ''Suppose that a cow were to stray upon the line 
and get in the way of the engine; would not that be a 
very awkward circumstance.'"' To which the countryman 
had a ready reply, ''Very awkward — for the cow!" The 
opposition, which was largely animated by the existing 
canal interest, ventured some views which the experience 
of the next five years was to make most ridiculous. They 
declared that the plan to carry the rails over the surveyed 
route across Chat Moss, a wide morass, was impossible; 
and furthermore, that no locomotive could make headway 
against the high winds which at times prevailed in that 
region. Experts were brought to testify that "no engi- 
neer in his senses would go through Chat Moss if he 
wanted to make a railroad from Liverpool to Manchester. ' * 



Stephenson and the Railway 73 

"In my judgment," said one of them, "a railroad cannot 
be made over Chat Moss without going to the bottom." 
The committee decided against the bill, but at the next 
session ParHament granted the company the power to 
construct the road, the question whether or not locomo- 
tives should be used upon it being left in abeyance. 
George Stephenson was chosen to be chief engineer, at 
one thousand pounds a year. 

Chat Moss was conquered by an ingenious device 
which practically floated the road-bed upon its spongy 
surface. Tunnels were driven through the hills, deep 
cuttings were made wherever needed, a ravine was crossed 
by a viaduct of brick and stone, and more than three- 
score bridges were thrown across the streams. All the 
plans for this complicated work passed under the eye, and 
many of them took their first form in the mind of the 
chief, whose skill as a mechanic was for the time sunk in 
his genius for civil engineering. By dint of the most 
strenuous application, and by the dominance of a spirit of 
perseverance which no discouragement or obstacle could 
daunt, Stephenson brought the road to triumphant com- 
pletion. The next thing was to convince the directors 
that the steam locomotive was the proper equipment for 
a public railway. As a beginning, he persuaded the com- 
pany to place one of his engines upon its construction 
trains. The experts who were employed to investigate the 
many proposed applications of power decided, however, 
that the most feasible equipment was a series of twenty-one 
stationary engines located at intervals along the right of 
way and hauling the cars stage after stage by means of a 
rope wound upon a drum — the principle of the cable rail- 
way which afterwards had its day in our streets. Still 



74 Ten Englishmen 

Stephenson would give the directors no peace. Finally, 
in order to settle the question of the practical utility of 
the traveling engine, the company offered a prize of five 
hundred pounds for the best locomotive engine, to be 
awarded after a competitive test upon certain conditions, 
the most notable of which were : 

**2. The engine of six tons weight must be able to 
draw after it, day by day, twenty tons weight at ten miles 
an hour with a pressure of steam on the boiler not exceed- 
ing fifty pounds to the square inch." 

**4. The engine and boiler must be supported on 
springs and rest on six wheels, the height of the whole 
not exceeding fifteen feet to the top of the chimney. ' ' 

**/. The engine must be delivered complete and ready 
for trial at the Liverpool end of the railway not later than 
the 1st of October, 1829." 

"8. The price of the engine must not exceed five hun- 
dred and fifty pounds." 

George Stephenson and his son Robert threw all their 
resources into the production of the locomotive which was 
to carry their colors in the contest. The ** Rocket" 
engine, which was built in their Newcastle shop, was 
fitted with a tubular boiler six feet long and three feet 
four inches in diameter. The fire-box was two feet wide 
and three feet high. On each side of the boiler at its rear 
end was an oblique cylinder, the piston-rods being con- 
nected with the outside of the two driving wheels, which 
were in front. The two rear wheels were about one-half 
the diameter of the drivers. The tender, also four- 
wheeled, was a simple affair, the water being carried in a 
large cask. 

After a successful trial trip, the ** Rocket," which 



Stephenson and the Railway 75 

weighed but four and a half tons, was sent by wagon 
across England to Carlisle, and thence to Liverpool. It 
was one of four steam engines entered in the competition 
which attracted wide attention. Among the entries was 
the * 'Novelty," the production of that talented Swede, 
John Ericsson, who afterwards, in America, built the 
iron-clad **Monitar." The "Novelty" showed fine 
bursts of speed, but failed in point of endurance. The 
** Perseverance" and "Sanspareil" developed radical 
defects, but the "Rocket," driven by George Stephen- 
son's own hand was prepared for every turn of the compe- 
tition, and surpassed all in power, speed, and general 
serviceability. To its makers the prize was unhesitatingly 
awarded, whereupon the hardy engineer amazed every 
beholder by letting out the last link and dashing past the 
grandstand at the rate of more than thirty miles an hour. 
The forced draft, which had made the Killingworth freight 
engines so successful, coupled with the tubular boiler, 
formed a combination which won the battle for the loco- 
motive once for all, and made the name of George 
Stephenson a household word. 

A year later, on the 15th of September, 1 830, the 
Manchester and Liverpool Railway was formally opened. 
The Duke of Wellington — the first citizen of the realm — 
was present with Sir Robert Peel and other distinguished 
personages, together with a vast throng of sightseers, 
enthusiastic spectators of the consummation of George 
Stephenson's dreams. Though marred by a fatal acci- 
dent, the occasion proved the entire practicability of the 
railway as a means of transportation. The multitudes 
who rode in its cars on that memorable day were but a 
foretaste of the patronage which the line was to receive. 



76 Ten Englishmen 

Although the intention of its projectors was to limit its 
traffic chiefly to freight, the road from the first found its 
offices besieged by persons eager to ride. Thus passen- 
ger traffic became established as its leading source of 
revenue, and thus were the capitalists encouraged to 
prosecute the extension of the railway system to points 
where the outlook for freight business was much less than 
between Liverpool and Manchester. Though these roads 
were fiercely opposed by the landowners, the canal-men, 
and turnpike proprietors, they were pressed forward in 
every direction. Robert Stephenson shared with his 
father the responsibility of engineering some of the prin- 
cipal lines, though the two men had the grim satisfaction 
of seeing the experts who had ridiculed the initial project 
now eagerly bidding for the opportunity of conducting 
surveys for the new lines. 

A mania for building railroads seized the world. The 
Stephensons were in demand not only throughout Great 
Britain, but even on the Continent. They had already 
made a market for their engines abroad, when, in 1835, 
they were summoned by the King of Belgium to assist in 
laying out a system of railways for that kingdom. For 
his services here the engineer was knighted by the King 
and banqueted at the royal table. Honored at home and 
abroad; happy in the general adoption of the ideas to 
which he had clung through opposition and adversity; 
proud of the son Robert, for whose education he had 
worked like a slave, and whom he now saw hailed as one 
of the great engineers of the world; fortunate in business; 
respected and beloved by men of every class, George 
Stephenson spent the closing years of his life in affluence 
and ease. He had earned his peace, for he had fought 



Stephenson and the Railway 77 

and won the battle of the locomotive, and so, by improv- 
ing the means of communication, had advanced the inter- 
ests of trade, and promoted the welfare of England and of 
mankind. George Stephenson died in 1848. His son 
Robert outlived him but eleven years, and was buried in 
Westminster Abbey as one of the great men of the cen- 
tury. The boldness of his engineering projects, the skill 
and daring with which he flung his railway bridges and 
viaducts across rivers, valleys, and straits, had caught and 
held the imagination of the world. Together the two men 
wrote the name of Stephenson large and lasting in the 
record of nineteenth-century England. 

Had the nineteenth century nothing else to show save 
the improvement in transportation, its fame would be 
secure. Within a dozen years after the opening of the 
Liverpool and Manchester Railway, Great Britain was 
covered with railways or railway surveys, establishing all 
the trunk-lines which now exist. The thirty and a half 
miles of the original line grew by leaps and bounds to a 
system of nearly two thousand miles, the property of a 
single company, whose property is valued at five hundred 
million dollars. Twenty-five years after the day of the 
''Rocket's" victory eight thousand miles of railway were 
in operation in the United Kingdom. Another twenty- 
five years brought the total up to eighteen thousand miles, 
which had cost for construction nearly four billion dollars. 
At the same time (1883) the number of locomotives was 
14,469, of cars, 490,661. Before Manchester and Liver- 
pool were connected by railway thirty stage-coaches 
sufficed for the passenger traffic. The railway carried 
seven hundred thousand passengers between the two cities 
in its first year and one-half. Fifty years later the passen- 



78 Ten Englishmen 

gers on all the English lines numbered six hundred mil- 
hon, of whom eighty-five per cent traveled third-class. 
The freight traffic in the same year was two hundred and 
twenty-six million tons. Robert Stephenson lived to 
see one per cent of the entire population of the United 
Kingdom employed on the railways. In 1884 the number 
of such employees was 367,793. These few figures are 
sufficient to suggest the magnitude of the economic 
changes which took place in England, and indeed through- 
out the civilized world, as the direct result of the talent, 
industry, and perseverance of George Stephenson, the 
Northumbrian plowboy. 



QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 

1. Describe the early life of George Stephenson. 

2. What attempts at locomotives had been made prior to 
his time ? 

3. What success of Stephenson's led to the Stockton-Dar- 
lington railway ? 

4. How did the "Quarterly" comment on the proposed 
Liverpool line ? 

5. What was the view of the Parliamentary committee ? 

6. Describe Stephenson's work on the Liverpool & Man- 
chester line. 

7. What competitors had the " Rocket " ? 

8. Describe the later work of the two Stephensons. 

9. Contrast Stephenson's England with that of to-day. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Life of Stephenson. Samuel Smiles. ("Lives of the Engi- 
neers.") 



V 

RUSSELL AND PARLIAMENTARY REFORM 

[John Russell, Earl Russell, born, London, August i8, 1792; 
died, Pembroke Lodge, Richmond Park, May 28, 1878; edu- 
cated at Westminster School and Edinburgh University; 
Member of Parliament, 1813; favored Catholic emancipation; 
1830-34, paymaster general; 1831, introduced the first Re- 
form Bill; 1832, carried the third Reform Bill; 1835-39, Home 
Secretary; 1839-41, Colonial Secretary; 1846-52, Prime Min- 
ister; 1852-53, Foreign Secretary; 1854-55, President of the 
Council; 1855, Colonial Secretary; 1859-65, Foreign Secre- 
tary; 1865-66, Prime Minister.] 

The Parliament of England is one of the most ancient 
of political institutions. Constitutional historians find its 
germs in the council of the wise men — "The Witenage- 
mot"— which was summoned to give advice to the early 
Anglo-Saxon kings. In the thirteenth century Simon de 
Montfort had added to the assembly of the nobles certain 
representatives of the counties, cities, and boroughs. The 
monarchs found this gathering of the estates of the nation a 
useful instrument of taxation and the Parliament in turn ac- 
quired certain legislative rights. In time the nobles or peers 
began to sit by themselves, leaving the chosen representa- 
tives to meet in a House of Commons. The story of the 
increasing influence of Parliament is in great part the liis- 
tory of the English nation. Before the close of the 
seventeenth century the power of Parliament had become 
the leading force in the state. Yet much remained to be 

79 



8o Ten Englishmen 

done in the nineteenth century to bring this supreme 
governing body into Uving touch with the heart of the 
nation. 

The conservative habit of the EngHsh had left the con- 
stitution of the House of Commons untouched for so many 
years that it had lost all but the semblance of a represen- 
tative body. No uniform qualification for the voter 
existed. In one locality the franchise was closely 
restricted, in others every man, however poor, might exer- 
cise the right to vote. There were all manner of varia- 
tions in these **fancy franchises, " which had been conferred 
by special charters at long separated intervals. Neither 
was there any existing relation between population and 
representation. Strange as the statement will appear to 
American readers, accustomed to the reapportionment of 
congressional representation after every federal census, it 
is a fact that there had been no radical change in the 
boundaries of election districts in England for centuries. 
The population had meanwhile undergone enormous 
changes. Not only had it increased manifold, but the 
rise of modern industry had occasioned a redistribution of 
the people. London had become a swarming hive. 
Liverpool docks and warehouses were surrounded by a 
crowded city. Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, and 
other places scarcely known to the England of Tudor and 
Stuart, were centers of busy industrial life, attracting to 
themselves multitudes of the inhabitants of the country- 
side. The counties, large and small, continued to have 
equal representation in Parliament, though some of them 
were many times more populous than others. In the 
boroughs the inequalities were most flagrant. Where a 
goodly village had been in Tudor times there might now 



Russell and Parliamentary Reform 8i 

be nothing visible but the crumbhng tower of the parish 
church, yet the place still retained its right to representa- 
tion in the House of Commons. Such decayed or **rot- 
ten" boroughs existed in considerable numbers. Their 
few voters were controlled by the land-owning nobility. 
McCarthy says, "The case of Old Sarum is famous. It 
returned members to Parliament in the days of Edward 
III., and from that period down to the time of the Reform 
Bill. But the town of Old Sarum gradually disappeared. 
Owing to the rise of New Sarum (Sahsbury) and to other 
causes the population gradually deserted it. The town 
became practically effaced from existence; its remains far 
less palpable or visible than those of any Baalbec or Pal- 
myra. Yet it continued to be represented in Parliament. 
It was at one time bought by Lord Chatham's grand- 
father, Governor Pitt. It was coolly observed at the time 
that "Mr. Pitt's posterity now have an hereditary seat in 
the House of Commons as owners of Old Sarum," just 
as any earl had a seat in the House of Lords by virtue 
of his hereditary peerage. When the Reform Bill was 
passed the member of Parliament for the borough of 
Ludgershall was himself the only voter in the borough and 
had chosen himself to Parliament on his own nomination. 
Another place with two members had only seven qualified 
voters. McCarthy is quite within the truth when he 
asserts that two-thirds of the House of Commons was 
made up of the nominees of the peers and great land- 
lords "who owned their boroughs and members just as 
they owned their parks and their cattle." Thus the 
power of the landed aristocracy, which was the House of 
Lords, lacked but little of being the House of Commons 
as well. The mass of the nation, which was now rapidly 



82 Ten Englishmen 

gaining in education and wealth, had no way of making 
its influence felt in Parliament except by the power of 
public opinion, to which the periodical and pamphlet press 
was beginning to give expression. 

The condition of the representation, the rotten 
boroughs, as those in decay were called, and the pocket 
boroughs, a name applied to those which were the prop- 
erty of individuals, opened the way for shameless corrup- 
tion. Where the electorate was small and the secret 
ballot unknown bribery had free rein. Seats were openly 
bought and sold. As early as 1 7/0 the elder Pitt (Lord 
Chatham) had placed his finger upon this ailing spot in 
the Enghsh body politic, and had said, "Before the end 
of this century, either the Parliament will reform itself 
from within, or be reformed with a vengeance from with- 
out." His prediction was falsified by the reactionary 
effect of the French Revolution, which not only made the 
English aristocracy cautious about readjusting political 
arrangements, but kept the minds and hands of English- 
men so fully occupied with foreign affairs as to divert 
attention from their own domestic troubles. At the close 
of the long struggle with Napoleon the question came 
rapidly to the front. Financial distress and industrial 
depression made the populace restless and discontented. 
The glowing principles which had inspired the French 
Revolution in its early days with its watchwords of "Lib- 
erty, Equality, and Fraternity," gained a deep lodgment 
in the popular mind. The dissatisfaction vented itself in 
attacks upon a political system which denied the right of 
representation to so large a proportion of the wealth-pro- 
ducing population. 

The government at first turned a deaf ear to these 



Russell and Parliamentary Reform 83 

appeals, then tried to suppress the agitation which swept 
through the great manufacturing towns. It was one of 
these bunghng attempts to silence free speech in Man- 
chester on August 16, 1 8 19, which led to the trampling 
and sabring of many innocent persons by cavalrymen, the 
''Peterloo massacre," which the populace long cherished 
as a bloody score against their aristocratic oppressors. 
For ten years more the democratic press continued to 
agitate even more bitterly for reform, and a lonely "radi- 
cal" member of Parliament would bring forward his 
motions only to have them contemptuously thrust aside. 
In 1830, however, a ministry came into power which 
allowed nothing to stand in the way until the long awaited 
bill had become a law. The condition which contributed 
to its success, the incidents of the tremendous parha- 
mentary struggle, and the men who carried it through, 
are all worthy of the most careful attention of the student 
of human affairs. 

The death of George IV. (June 26, 1830) made way 
for his brother, William IV., and made necessary a general 
parliamentary election. The summer had seen a liberal 
revolution in Paris. The Bourbons had been thrust out and 
Louis Philippe had been accepted as the citizen-king of 
the French, governing under a liberal constitution. This 
revolution, and simultaneous movements throughout west- 
ern Europe, touched an answering chord in the breasts of 
Englishmen, and the Tories found themselves in a minor- 
ity when the new Parliament assembled in November. 
The Duke of Wellington was Prime Minister, the last 
man from whom the popular cause could expect to receive 
any concessions. At the opening of the session the 
premier took occasion to declare his disbelief "that the 



84 Ten Englishmen 

state of representation could be improved or be rendered 
more satisfactory to the country at large than at the 
present moment.'* **I am fully convinced," he said, 
*'that the country possesses a legislature which answers 
all the good purposes of legislation, and this to a greater 
degree than any legislature has answered in any other 
country whatever." He flatly declared his determined 
opposition to any measure of reform. Within a fortnight 
his government met its Waterloo and he resigned. 

Earl Gray, the Whig premier who succeeded Welling- 
ton, came into oflice fully resolved to pass a Reform Bill. 
The responsibility of drafting the measure was intrusted 
to a young Whig commoner, Lord John Russell, a younger 
son of the Duke of Bedford, and a scion of one of the 
great Whig houses. Lord John Russell had entered 
Parliament in 18 13, at the age of twenty-one, for one of 
the family boroughs. He was now in his thirty-seventh 
year, and his parliamentary career, if not brilliant for 
oratory, had at least been marked by intelligent devotion 
to high ideals. In 18 19, before the echoes of Peterloo 
had died away, he had asked Parliament to disfranchise all 
boroughs of proved corruption, and transfer their repre- 
sentation to more deserving constituencies. A little later 
he proved to the House the corruption existing at Gram- 
pound, and secured the disfranchisement of that borough 
and the transfer of its voting rights to the great county 
of York. This was but a small step, but it opened the 
way to tremendous changes. He was determined, he said, 
to strip *'the dead bones of a former state of England" 
of their political influence and give it to the "living energy 
of England of the nineteenth century, with its steam 
engines and its factories, its cotton and woolen cloths, its 



Russell and Parliamentary Reform 85 

cutlery and its coal mines, its wealth and its intelligence." 
Session after session he returned to this text only to be 
as often defeated by the Tories. He was more successful 
in 1828 when he carried the repeal of the Test and Cor- 
poration Acts, relics of a bygone age when it was thought 
necessary to the safety of the nation to exclude from mili- 
tary or civil office all persons who did not take the com- 
munion in accordance with the ritual of the Established 
Church. *'Lord John," as he came to be called in the 
course of his half-century of parliamentary Hfe, would 
have advanced from the relief of Protestant dissenters to 
the emancipation of the Catholics, had not the Tories, in 
their dread of civil war in Ireland, forestalled him, and 
made the measure their own (April, 1829). 

The first Reform Bill, which had been drafted by Rus- 
sell, and worked over by Lord Durham and other ministers, 
was presented to the Commons on March I, 183 1. Its 
provisions had been kept profoundly secret, and the house 
was thronged to hear them explained in the low and meas- 
ured tones of Lord John Russell. The nation was as 
eager as the immediate auditory to know how far the 
government would go in granting the popular demand. 
Touching upon some of the existing anomalies the speaker 
imagined a foreigner visiting England; having been im- 
pressed with British wealth, civilization, and renown, 
**Would not such a foreigner," he queried, '*be much 
astonished if he were taken to a green mound and informed 
that it sent two members to the British Parliament.? .... 
or if he walked into a park without the vestige of a dwell- 
ing and was told that it, too, sent two members to the 
British Parliament? But if he was surprised at this, how 
much more would he be astonished if he were carried into 



86 Ten Englishmen 

the north of England, where he would see large, flourish- 
ing towns, full of trade, activity, and intelligence, vast 
magazines of wealth and manufactures, and were told that 
these places sent no representatives to Parliament!" 

By the provisions of the bill sixty boroughs with less 
than two thousand members were to lose both members, 
and forty-seven boroughs were to be reduced to a single 
member. Of the seats thus vacated eight were to be given 
to London, thirty-four to large towns, fifty-five to English 
counties, five to Scotland, three to Ireland, one to Wales. 
The franchise was to be extended to inhabitants of houses 
taxed at ten pounds a year, and to leaseholders and copy- 
holders of counties. The changes added about half a 
million to the number of voters in the United Kingdom. 

The country followed the progress of the debate with 
intense interest night after night. The bill passed to its 
second reading by a majority of one in the fullest house 
on record and the country gave itself up to illuminations 
and other expressions of joy. But the bill got no farther. 
The majority was too close for the comfort of the minis- 
ters, and having been defeated on a matter of detail, they 
confidently appealed to the country. The King dissolved 
Parliament, and writs were issued for a general election. 
It was at this juncture, when London was illuminating to 
show its satisfaction over the prospect for a reform victory, 
that the darkened windows of the Duke of Wellington's 
town house were stoned by the populace. 

The rallying cries of the Whigs were "The bill, the 
whole bin, and nothing but the bill, ' ' and * * Reform, Aye 
or No?" Popular agitation by associations, newspapers, 
speech-making, monster meetings, etc., reached an unpre- 
cedented height, and the force of public opinion was 



Russell and Parliamentary Reform 87 

shown at the polls. In spite of pocket boroughs, family 
influence, and flagrant corruption, the reformers came back 
to Parliament with their majority increased to fully one 
hundred. Of the eighty-two members for the counties 
where the popular feeling had its freest expression, only 
six were opposed to Lord Russell's scheme of reform. 

Lord Russell's second Reform Bill was introduced on 
June 24th. The minority, hopeless of success in a stand- 
up flght, resorted to the obstructive tactics now known as 
** filibustering." After wasting three months in tedious 
obstruction the Commons passed the bill by a majority of 
one hundred and nine, and Lord Grey laid it before the 
House of Lords in the most impressive speech of his 
career. He endeavored to persuade the aristocrats before 
him that only by such concessions could the Constitution 
of England be saved. Already there were wide-spread 
evidences of popular discontent in the ** nightly alarms, 
burnings, and popular disturbances." The rotten bor- 
oughs could no longer be tolerated with safety to the state. 
"This gangrene upon our representative system bade 
defiance to all remedies but that of excision." Deaf to 
his arguments, and blind to everything but their own privi- 
lege and immediate interest, the peers pronounced against 
the bill. 

The rejection of the second Reform Bill by the House 
of Lords brought England to the brink of revolution. As 
it was, the newspapers were full of signs that the patience 
of the nation was exhausted. Mobs and incendiary fires 
were reported in many districts, and the abolition of the 
House of Lords found strenuous advocates. It was at 
one of the numerous indignation meetings that Sydney 
Smith hit off the attempt of the Lords to stay the progress 



88 Ten Englishmen 

of reform by comparing it with Mrs. Partington's attempt 
to check the high tide at Sidmouth with a mop. "The 
Atlantic was roused. Mrs. Partington's spirit was up. 
But I need not tell you that the contest was unequal. 
The Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Partington. Gentlemen, 
be at your ease; be quiet and steady; you will beat Mrs. 
Partington ! ' ' 

As soon as the Parliament reassembled in Decem- 
ber, Lord John Russell offered the third Reform Bill. 
It was identical in principle with the others, though 
the number of the affected boroughs had been slightly 
altered. It passed its successive stages by ample majori- 
ties and was in due order presented to the House of Lords. 
The ministers were prepared to play their last card. 
They found the peers determined to mutilate the proposi- 
tion in disregard of the popular demand, now louder than 
ever, for "The bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the 
bill." Earl Grey and his chancellor. Lord Brougham, 
thereupon requested King William to overcome the oppo- 
sition by sanctioning the creation of new peers sufficient 
to insure a majority for the act. But the King held 
back. The ministers offered their resignations, and the 
King commissioned the Iron Duke to form a government. 
But no Tory government could stand a day in the face of 
the hosts of reform in the Commons and in the nation, as 
Wellington had reluctantly to confess. The monarch had 
to yield, and so doing, helped establish the principle more 
firmly than ever before that the chief power in the English 
Constitution is lodged in the House of Commons, acting 
through its ministers. In this case it w^as Commons 
against King and Lords, and the Commons had their way. 
To save themselves from an inundation of new peerages 



Russell and Parliamentary Reform 89 

the Lords whose hostility to the bill was irreconcilable 
absented themselves from Westminster when the vote was 
taken — "skulked in clubs and country houses" as Lord 
Russell sharply phrased it. The Duke of Wellington's 
words will show the temper with which the hide-bound 
Tories received the act. "Reform, my Lords, has 
triumphed. The barriers of the Constitution are broken 
down, the waters of destruction have burst the gates of 
the temple, and the tempest begins to howl. Who can 
say where its course should stop.'' Who can stay its 
speed.? For my own part I sincerely hope that my pre- 
dictions may not be fulfilled, and that my country may not 
be ruined." 

The immediate effect of the reform was to admit the 
tradesmen and tenant-farmers, the sturdy English middle 
class, to a share in the government. Thirty-five years 
later, after Lord Russell had made three or four futile 
endeavors to cany still further the principle of reform, 
his opponents, the Conservatives, led by Lord Derby and 
Mr. Disraeli, passed the Reform Bills of 1867-68, greatly 
reducing the property qualification of voters, and rectify- 
ing inequalities in borough representation. Under this 
act most of the mechanic and artisan class gained the 
right to vote. Finally, in 1884, Mr. Gladstone carried 
the reform another stage, conferring the franchise upon 
two millions of poor men, including the class of agricul- 
tural laborers. 

His contribution to the success of reform identified 
Lord John Russell with the cause of liberty, and made 
him a leading man. It is not within the scope of this 
sketch to follow him through the shifting scenes of the 
honorable career in politics and statesmanship which now 



90 Ten Englishmen 

opened out before him, and which continued until, when at 
nearly four-score, the party leadership passed from him 
to his able associate, WilHam Ewart Gladstone. Among 
the notable measures in which he had a leading hand was 
the Municipal Reform Act of 1835, which put the govern- 
ment of cities in the hands of the taxpayers and did away 
with the effete and corrupt corporations which had exer- 
cised it. His ''Edinburgh letter," in 1845, hastened Peel's 
conversion to free trade. He was ever concerned in 
religion and education. After the overthrow of Peel's 
government, in 1846, he was raised to the premiership. 
He held the position until 1852, and again, from October, 
1865, to June, 1866. His retirement in the latter year 
removed from British politics a conspicuous figure. It 
was a figure which had filled a large place in the affairs of 
the world, and for the most part filled it well, though 
never again in his career was it his lot to become such a 
popular hero as he was during the early battles for reform. 
Russell's death, in 1878, brought up the varied panorama 
of his life. McCarthy, in reviewing it, touches upon some 
of its points of interest. *'He had a seat in the admin- 
istration at his disposal when another young man might 
have been glad of a seat in an opera box. He must have 
been brought into more or less intimate association with 
all the men and women worth knowing in Europe since 
the early part of the century. He was a pupil of Dugald 
Stewart at Edinburgh, and he sat as a youth at the feet 
of Fox. He had accompanied Wellington in some of his 
peninsular campaigns; he measured swords with Canning 
and Peel successively through years of parliamentary 
warfare. He knew Metternich and Talleyrand. He had 
met the widow of Charles Stuart, the young chevalier, in 



Russell and Parliamentary Reform 91 

Florence; and had conversed with Napoleon in Elba. He 
knew Cavour and Bismarck. He was now an ally of 
Daniel O'Connell, and now of Cobden and Bright. He 
was the close friend of Thomas Moore; he knew Byron. 
Lord John Russell had tastes for literature, for art, for 
philosophy, for history, for politics, and his aestheticism 
had the advantage that it made him seek the society and 
appreciate the worth of men of genius and letters. Thus 
he never remained a mere politician like Pitt or Palmer- 
ston." 

No one will now claim that Earl Russell — he was 
raised to the peerage with this title — is to be ranked 
with the few greatest of English statesmen, but that he 
served his country devotedly, honorably, and courageously 
will not be denied. His contemporary, Lord Shaftesbury, 
noted his death in his own journal with this just com- 
ment: **To have begun with disapprobation, to have 
fought through many difficulties, to have announced and 
acted on principles new to the day in which he lived, to 
have filled many important offices, to have made many 
speeches and written many books, and in his whole course 
to have done much with credit and nothing with dishonor, 
and so to have sustained and advanced his reputation to 
the very end, is a mighty commendation. ' ' And the Queen, 
in a letter to his widow, wrote: "You will beUeve that I 
truly regret an old friend of forty years' standing, and 
whose personal kindness in trying and anxious times I 
shall ever remember. 'Lord John,' as I knew him best, 
was one of my first and most distinguished ministers, and 
his departure recalls many eventful times." 



92 Ten Englishmen 



QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 

1. In what ways did Parliament fail to be " representative " 
at the opening of the nineteenth century ? 

2. What circumstances favored agitation of this condition ? 

3. What was the "Peterloo Massacre " ? 

4. Who w^as Lord Russell, and what his early relation to 
the reform movement ? 

5. What was the Test and Corporation Act, and when 
repealed ? 

6. Describe the first Reform Bill, and its effect upon the 
House of Commons ? 

7. How was the second bill treated by the Commons and 
by the Lords ? 

8. What circumstances attended the passage of the third 
bill? 

9. How was the principle of reform extended in later years ? 

10. What peculiar privileges did Lord John Russell enjoy ? 

11. How is his character shown in the use which he made 
of them ? 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Life of Earl Russell. S. J. Reid. 
Recollections and Suggestions. Lord John Russell. 
The Epoch of Reform. Justin McCarthy. 
History of the Reform Bill. W. N. Molesworth. 



VI 

COBDEN AND FREE TRADE 

[Richard Cobden, born, 1804, at Dunford, near Midhurst, 
Sussex; died, London, 1865; after grammar school education, 
entered mercantile house in London, soon becoming a travel- 
ing salesman; about i83Gbecamefounderof a cotton-printing 
concern at Manchester; traveled in Europe and America; 
wrote pamphlets on commercial and economic questions; 
1838, became an ardent supporter of the Anti-Corn Law- 
League; 1841, Member of Parliament for Stockport; advo- 
cate of free trade in the House of Commons; received 
popular testimonial of ^79,000 in recognition of his services 
to the free trade cause; 1847-57, Member of Parliament 
for West Riding of York; advocate of arbitration and 
diminished expense for military purposes; 1849, Member of 
Parliament for Rochdale; i860, negotiated commercial 
treaty with France.] 

The Reform Bill of 1832 invaded the privileges of the 
landed aristocracy by destroying in some measure their 
control of the House of Commons through the pocket 
boroughs. Sixteen years later a second blow was struck 
at this class through the repeal of the Corn Laws. 

The Corn Laws aimed to secure to English agricultur- 
ists a monopoly of the home market for grain. The wars 
with Napoleon, which paralyzed continental industries, 
stimulated those of England to abnormal prosperity. 
Food advanced in price, but labor was in great demand 
and well paid. The prospect of approaching peace in 
Europe, in 1813, precipitated hard times in Great Britain. 

93 



94 Ten Englishmen 

The price of wheat fell and manufactures declined. The 
land-owning classes, then supreme in Parliament, enacted 
the Corn Law of 1815 for their own protection. By its 
provisions the importation of grain from foreign countries 
was practically prohibited until the price in England 
reached eighty shillings per quarter. Ten members of 
the House of Lords protested against the measure on the 
grounds that all restraint of trade was improper; that the 
restraint of trade in food was especially iniquitous; that 
the law would not steady or cheapen prices; and that 
*'such a measure levied a tax on the consumer in order to 
give a bounty to the grower of corn, ' ' — principles which 
have a modern sound. 

England was at that time living under a system of high 
protective tariffs upon imported articles of manufacture 
as well as of food. But in 1823-25 Mr. Huskisson suc- 
ceeded in having most of the tariffs upon raw materials 
reduced to a fraction of the former figures, with the result 
that production was enormously stimulated and valuable 
foreign markets were opened to English commodities. 
His only modification of the Corn Law (in 1822) was to 
reduce by ten shillings the figure at which importations 
might begin. Later he and Canning made some progress 
with a *' sliding scale" bill, a principle which the Duke of 
Wellington enacted into law in 1828. This interesting 
device provided that when the price in the home market 
reached sixty-four shillings the quarter the duty should be 
23s 8d. As the price rose the duty fell. When wheat 
was 69s, the duty was 1 6s 8d, and when the price 
reached 73 s, foreign corn might come in on payment of 
one shilling per quarter. 

As has been shown in a foregoing chapter, the past half- 



Cobden and Free Trade 95 

century had witnessed a great transformation in the indus- 
trial complexion of England — from a nation chiefly agricul- 
tural it had become the center of the world's manufactures. 
Tens of thousands of families had removed from the farms 
to the cities, ''following the work" in the mills and fac- 
tories, and hundreds of thousands of pounds had been 
invested in a great diversity of industrial enterprises. 
The manufacturer and the mill-hand were alike interested 
in low prices for food. The manufacturer also saw in the 
high tariff on grain a barrier against the free exchange of 
commodities. As his output increased it became neces- 
sary for him to enlarge his market, but when he attempted 
to sell his goods to America and Russia the law interposed 
to block the bargain by excluding those grain-producing 
countries from selling their superfluous food-stocks in 
England. Apparently here was a clash between the inter- 
ests of manufacturer and agriculturist. 

In 1836 a few thoughtful men in London, who were 
opposed to any restraint of trade, formed an Anti-Corn 
Law Association. But the metropolis was stony soil for 
such a plant. In 1838 a similar association was organized 
in Manchester, one of the new industrial cities dominated 
by modern ideas, crowded with factories, and populous 
with laboring men and women, a fit center for such an 
agitation as was to precede the downfall of the tax on 
food. In Manchester, too, in the person of a calico- 
printer named Richard Cobden, the agitation found its 
mainspring and its clear and persuasive voice. 

Richard Cobden sprang from a long line of plain Sussex 
yeomen. His father was a farmer who became bankrupt 
in 181 3, and the lad Richard, one of twelve children, was 
sent by a well-meaning relative to a Yorkshire boarding- 



96 Ten Englishmen 

school — a sort of Dotheboys Hall. From such a rough 
school he passed into the rougher one of life, becoming 
the lad of all work in the London warehouse of the same 
kinsman, later a clerk, and at twenty-one a traveling sales- 
man, or "drummer," a position for which his untiring 
energy and engaging sociability were high qualifications. 
A great reader, he was also a superior converser and a 
"mixer" as the present-day phrase goes, adapting himself 
to his company with unusual facility. John Morley 
records that all his friends agree that "they have never 
known a man in whom this trait of a sound and rational 
desire to know and to learn was so strong and so inex- 
haustible." "To know the affairs of the world was the 
master-passion of his life, ' ' and the knowledge which he 
gained and assimilated not merely in his early contact 
with men in his business, but in the wider journeys of 
observation to which he treated himself in later years, 
contributed much to the enrichment of his speeches and 
writings. 

At the age of twenty-four, with two other young men, 
whose capital like his own was little more than energy, 
probity, and business knowledge, he founded a firm in 
London for the sale of Manchester cotton prints on com- 
mission. Soon the firm was printing its own goods in 
Lancashire, and Mr. Cobden, prospering greatly from the 
first, took up his residence in Manchester, to watch over 
that end of the business. Though as full of affairs as any 
man in that hive of industry, Cobden found time to store 
his mind by reading and by reflection upon the knowledge 
gained by intercourse with his fellowmen. He visited 
France, Switzerland, and in 1835, America, where he 
foresaw a growing market for his wares, and where, as 



Cobden and Free Trade 97 

he wrote, he fondly hoped ** would be realized some of 
those dreams of human exaltation if not of perfection" 
with which he loved to console himself. In 1836-37 he 
visited the Mediterranean countries, and on his return was 
an unsuccessful candidate for a seat in the House of 
Commons. 

In May, 1838, Richard Cobden wrote to his brother 
concerning the political outlook in the nation, the Chartist 
agitation, the Radical demands, and the general disorgani- 
zation which existed among the opponents of Tory govern- 
ment. The letter includes these significant words: "I 
think the scattered elements may yet be rallied round the 
question of the Corn Laws. It appears to me that a 
moral, and even a religious, spirit may be infused into that 
topic, and if agitated in the same manner that the ques- 
tion of slavery has been, it will be irresistible." 

The purposes of the Manchester Anti-Corn Law Asso- 
ciation are thus stated by Morley: **To obtain by all legal 
and constitutional means, such as the formation of local 
associations, the delivery of lectures, the distribution of 
tracts, and the presentation of petitions to Parliament, the 
total and immediate repeal of the Corn and Provision 
Laws." Mr. Cobden became a member of the executive 
committee, and his mind, voice, and pen were active in the 
service of the society until its object was attained. In 
response to his appeal for a campaign fund (**Let us invest 
part of our property in order to save the rest from con- 
fiscation") six thousand pounds poured into the treasury 
within a month. The local societies, which sprang up like 
wildfire in the manufacturing towns, were affiliated with 
that at Manchester, which soon became the headquarters 
of a far-reaching league. 



98 Ten Englishmen 

The leaguers carried political agitation to a point of 
thoroughness beyond anything which had yet been reached 
by O'Connell or the abolitionists. They issued a news- 
paper organ which enunciated its principles and denounced 
the enemies of free trade. Vast editions of tracts and 
leaflets were scattered broadcast throughout the land, and 
a staff of carefully instructed speakers was maintained to 
itinerate through the rural districts and preach the gospel 
of free corn in tavern, market-place, and town hall. 

In Parliament the battle must be won, and the league 
soon began its work of capturing seats in the House of 
Commons. Cobden himself was chosen, in 1 84 1, as 
member for Stockport. Almost immediately he exercised 
his gift as a speaker, securing at once the attention of his 
colleagues by his style of oratory, which, with little formal 
eloquence or rhetorical elaboration, was powerfully per- 
suasive, enriched by many happy illustrations drawn from 
life, and infused with a pure and lofty spirit. Whatever 
the topic under discussion, he was always able to show 
its relation to the obnoxious tariff, and to point out that 
the only sure remedy for the prevalent national ills was by 
way of the repeal of *^the tax on bread." At first the 
young calico-printer — he was but thirty-seven — who 
embodied the opposition to the Corn Laws, was looked 
upon as an intruder by the young aristocrats of the 
House. They made fun of his classical allusions, and 
magnified his lack of education, attempting to laugh down 
his logic. But Cobden was not long in proving his ability 
to take care of himself on the floor of the House. It was 
no mere politician who caught the ear of the country with 
words like these: "When I go down to the manufacturing 
districts, I know that I shall be returning to a gloomy 



Cobden and Free Trade 99 

scene. I know that starvation is stalking through the 
land, and that men are perishing for the want of the 
merest necessaries of life. When I witness this, and 
recollect that there is a law which especially provides for 
keeping our population in absolute want, I cannot help 
attributing murder to the legislature of this country; and 
wherever I stand, whether here or out-of-doors, I will 
denounce that system of legislative murder." 

Out-of-doors Mr. Cobden had the strong support of 
the most eloquent Englishman of his generation, John 
Bright. The two men had been drawn together early by 
a common interest in the welfare of the manufacturing 
classes, and especially in popular education. In Septem- 
ber, 1 84 1, Cobden visited his friend in his house, and 
found him plunged in sadness by the death of his young 
wife. After words of condolence, he said, with great 
earnestness, "John, there are thousands of houses in 
England at this moment where wives, mothers, and chil- 
dren are dying of hunger. Now when the first paroxysm 
of your grief is passed, I would advise you to come with 
me and we will never rest until the Corn Law is repealed." 

"For seven years," Mr. Bright afterward said, "the 
discussion on that one question — whether it was good for 
a man to have half a loaf or a whole loaf — for seven years 
the discussion was maintained, I will not say with doubtful 
result, for the result was never doubtful and never could 
be in such a cause; but for five years or more (1841-46), 
we devoted ourselves without stint; every working hour 
almost was given up to the discussion and to the move- 
ment in connection with this question." 

Mr. Morley's description of the two orators and their 
mission is memorable: "The public imagination was 

L.ofC. 



lOO Ten Englishmen 

struck by the figures of the pair who had given themselves 
up to a great pubhc cause. The picture of two plain men 
leaving their homes and their business and going over the 
length and breadth of the land to convert the nation, had 
about it something apostolic; it presented something so 
far removed from the stereotyped ways of political activ- 
ity, that this circumstance alone, apart from the object 
for which they were pleading, touched and affected people, 
and gave a certain dramatic interest to the long pilgrim- 
ages of the two men who had only become orators because 
they had something to say which they were intent on 
bringing their hearers to believe, and which happened to 

be true, wise, and just In Cobden, as in Bright, 

we feel that there was nothing personal or small, and that 
what they cared for so vehemently were great causes. 
.... Mr. Bright had all the resources of passion alive 
within his breast. He was carried along by vehement 
political anger, and deeper than that there glowed a wrath 
as stern as that of an ancient prophet. To cling to a 
mischievous error seemed to him to savor of moral deprav- 
ity and corruption of heart. What he saw was the selfish- 
ness of the aristocracy and the landlords and he was too 
deeply moved by the hatred of this to care to deal very 
patiently with the bad reasoning which their own self- 
interest inclined his adversaries to mistake for good. His 
invective was not the expression of mere irritation, but a 
profound and menacing passion. Hence he dominated 
his audiences from a height, while his companion rather 
drew them along after him as friends and equals. Cobden 
was by no means incapable of passion, of violent feeling, 
or of vehement expression. His fighting qualities were 
in their own way as formidable as Mr. Bright 's 



Cobden and Free Trade loi 

Still it was not passion to which we must look for the 
secret of his oratorical success. In one word, it was per- 
suasiveness. Cobden made his way to men's hearts by 
the union which they saw in him of simplicity, earnest- 
ness, and conviction, with a singular facility of exposition. 
This facility consisted in a remarkable power of apt and 
homely illustration, and a curious ingenuity in framing the 

argument that happened to be wanted In such an 

appeal to popular sentiment and popular passion as the 
contemporary agitation of O'Connell for repeal, he could 
have played no leading part. Where knowledge and logic 
were the proper instruments, Cobden was a master." 
Nor did his efficiency cease when the audience dispersed. 
In council chamber and work-room his alert and inventive 
mind and persuasive conversational eloquence had free 
scope. His hopeful enthusiasm, his clever devices for 
stimulating the jaded interest of the masses, and his 
unfailing good humor made him the chief engineer of the 
highly complex machinery of the league. 

His enthusiasm led to the formation of associations in 
all the centers of industry; it redoubled the efforts and 
efficiency of the lecturers who carried the doctrines of the 
league into the agricultural counties — the enemy's country; 
it replenished the treasury of the league with thousands of 
pounds by subscriptions and by grand bazaars, one of which 
netted ten thousand pounds; it gave life and variety to 
the newspaper organ of the agitation; and in Parliament 
it met the government by a constant fire of questions, a 
bombardment of solid fact, and a harassing recurrence to 
the necessity of total and immediate repeal as the only 
salve for the economic sores of the kingdom. 

His parliamentary opponents attacked him fiercely. 



I02 Ten Englishmen 

They accused him of hypocrisy in carrying on an agitation 
professedly for the general good, but really intended to 
help the cotton manufacturers at the expense of the land- 
owners and agriculturists. They laid at Cobden's door 
the miseries of the mill-hands of Manchester, crying 
"Physician, heal thyself." So strongly intrenched was 
''monopoly" in the House of Commons that it was slow 
work for the Anti-Corn Law League with its weapons of 
peaceful agitation to drive it out. Year after year the 
orators traveled through the three kingdoms, addressing 
thousands, tracts were distributed by the ton, and enor- 
mous sums of money were subscribed (the amount for 1844 
being nearly a hundred thousand pounds). In order that 
the popular opinion thus carefully cultivated might be 
brought effectively to bear at the next parliamentary elec- 
tion, the league took care that every qualified free trader 
was registered on the polling lists. At Cobden's sugges- 
tion large numbers of workingmen qualified by becoming 
freeholders. 

The eloquence of Bright, the cogent reasoning of 
Cobden, and the long campaign of education were steadily 
doing their work. The number of professed free trad- 
ers in Parliament was still small, but the thoughtful leaders 
of the great parties, the men who studied the sentiment 
of the country, and watched the signs of the times, and 
weighed well the masses of evidence which the league 
continually brought forward — these men were being con- 
verted to the Manchester idea. What Cobden said in a 
popular assembly in the summer of 1845 was truer than 
even he may have beheved. "What," he asked, "if you 
could get at the minds of the people would you find them 
thinking as to the repeal of the Corn Laws.? I know it as 



Cobden and Free Trade 103 

well as if I were in their hearts. It is this: they are all 
afraid that this Corn Law cannot be maintained — no, not 
a rag of it — during a period of scarcity prices, of a famine 
season, such as we had in '39, '40, and '41. They know 
it. They are prepared when such a time comes to abolish 

the Corn Laws They are going to repeal it — 

mark my words — at a season of distress. That distress 
may come; aye, three weeks of showery weather, when 
the wheat is in bloom or ripening, would repeal these 
Corn Laws." He had already shown the precarious con- 
dition of the Irish people, whose only food was the potato, 
and whom the high price of grain kept on the edge of 
famine. The autumnal rains of 1845 precipitated the 
crisis, and fulfilled Cobden 's prediction. The failure of 
the potato harvest plunged Ireland into dire distress for 
food. The league in crowded meetings denounced the 
tax on bread while men starved. The government of Sir 
Robert Peel hesitated as to the proper course. To sus- 
pend the food tariff might prove a concession to free trade 
which could never be regained. While Peel's cabinet 
hung back Lord John Russell, the leader of the Whigs, 
issued (November 22) his famous Edinburgh letter to his 
constituents, declaring that the time had come for the 
repeal of the baneful legislation. Peel was of the same 
mind, but some of his Tory colleagues resisted. None 
were more stubborn than Wellington, whose action at this 
juncture led Cobden to say, "Let me remind him that, 
notwithstanding all his victories in the field, he never yet 
entered into a contest with Englishmen in which he was 
not beaten." The effort of the Whigs to form a ministry 
having failed, Peel resumed the premiership which he had 
resigned. ParUament assembled on January 26, 1846, 



I04 Ten Englishmen 

and the Prime Minister's speecli foreshadowed his con- 
version to the poUcy of Cobden. The next day he 
explained his program. The Corn Laws were to be 
totally repealed by gradual reductions of the duty extend- 
ing over a period of three years. Despite the mockery of 
Disraeli and the protectionists the bill passed the Commons 
by a great majority, and bowing to superior power, the 
Duke of Wellington helped it to pass the House. On 
June 26th Cobden carried the news to his wife: ''Hurrah! 
Hurrah ! The corn bill is law, and now my work is done ! ' ' 
Cobden's utter consecration of himself for eight years 
to the Anti-Corn Law agitation had cost him severely. 
The constant travel, exposure, and hardship of speaking 
in the open air had seriously impaired his health. His 
business had been neglected until he had been only saved 
from bankruptcy by the generosity of friends. The league 
into which he had poured his best thought and effort hon- 
ored him by a popular subscription amounting to nearly 
eighty thousand pounds as a testimonial to his public- 
spirited devotion. He might have entered the govern- 
ment, but preferred otherwise. During the twenty years 
of life which remained to him he was the advocate of 
numerous reforms. Ever a lover of peace, he was a 
strong champion of the principle of international arbitra- 
tion, and of the reduction of armaments. The most 
conspicuous achievement of his later years was his suc- 
cessful negotiation of more liberal commercial treaties 
between France and England, a service for which he 
received the thanks of both governments. During the 
American Civil War his sympathies were strongly enlisted 
for the North against the cause of the slave-holders, and 
his speeches helped to restrain the hostile feeling of the 



Cobden and Free Trade 105 

aristocracy. Though sometimes exposing himself to ridi- 
cule and obloquy by running counter to the popular cur- 
rent, Mr. Cobden's honesty and sincerity were such that 
his opponents must admit his purity of motive and nobil- 
ity of soul. His death, in 1865, was recognized as a 
national loss. 

No eulogium pronounced over his grave by Bright, the 
companion of his labors and triumphs, or by Disraeli and 
Gladstone, great converts to his economic doctrines, is so 
memorable as the brief passage in which Sir Robert Peel, 
in the last hours of his premiership, gave to the free-trade 
agitator the credit for the great reform: **In reference to 
our proposing these measures," he said, "I have no wish 
to rob any person of the credit which is justly due to him 
for them. But I may say that neither the gentlemen 
sitting on the benches opposite, nor myself, nor the 
gentlemen sitting round me — are the parties who are 

strictly entitled to the merit Sir, the name which 

ought to be, and which will be, associated with the suc- 
cess of these measures is the name of a man who, acting, 
I believe from pure and disinterested motives, has advo- 
cated their cause with untiring energy, and by appeals to 
reason, expressed by an eloquence the more to be admired 
because it was unaffected and unadorned, the name which 
ought to be, and will be, associated with the success of these 
measures is the name of Richard Cobden. Without scruple, 
sir, I attribute the success of these measures to him." 

The commercial policy which England inaugurated, in 
1846, under the lead of Richard Cobden, continued in 
force throughout the century. Under its workings the 
commercial supremacy of England in the markets of the 
world has been achieved, 



io6 Ten Englishmen 



QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 

1. What conditions brought about the Corn Laws ? 

2. What was the object of the " sliding scale " ? 

3. How did the Corn Laws work against both mill-hand 
and manufacturer ? 

4. Give an account of the early life of Richard Cobden. 

5. Describe the organization of the Anti-Corn Law Associa- 
tion. 

6. What impression did Cobden make in the House of 
Commons ? 

7. How was John Bright enlisted in the agitation ? 

8. Compare the oratorical qualities of the two men. 

g. In what varied ways did Cobden's enthusiasm make 
itself felt ? 

10. What events fulfilled Cobden's prediction and brought 
about the repeal of the Corn Laws ? 

11. What were the chief events of the last twenty years of 
Cobden's life ? 

12. What tribute did Sir Robert Peel pay to him ? 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Lz/e of Richard Cobden. John Morley. 

History of the Anti-Corft Law League. Prentice. 

Corn Law Rhymes. Ebenezer Elliott. 



VII 

PEEL AND ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS 

[Robert Peel, born February 5, 1788, near Bury, Lancashire; 
died, London, July 2, 1850; educated at Harrow and Christ 
Church, Oxford, B.A., 1808 (double first); Member of Parlia- 
ment, 1809; 181 1, Under-Secretary for the Colonies; 1812-18, 
Secretary for Ireland; 1817, Member of Parliament for Ox- 
ford University; 1819, advocated return to specie payment; 
1820, married Julia, daughter of General Sir John Floyd; 
1822-27, Home Secretary, Leader of House of Commons; 
1826, proposed reform of Criminal Law; 1828, Home Secre- 
tary and Leader of the House; 1829, proposed Catholic 
emancipation; 1834-35, Prime Minister; 1841-46, Prime 
Minister; 1842, carried Income Tax; 1846, repealed the 
Corn Laws; 1846-50, without office.] 

When the Reform Bill of 1832 was passed, the Duke 
of Wellington bluntly declared his conviction that the 
result would be the speedy overthrow of the British Con- 
stitution. More sagacious observers than the great field- 
marshal were of the opinion that a radical change must 
ensue, and that the Tory party, long the prop of Church 
and Throne, having lost control of legislation in the House 
of Commons through the abolition of the close and rotten 
boroughs, could never regain the seat of power by elect- 
ing a majority of members. That these forebodings and 
prophecies did not come true was largely due to the con- 
summate political skill of Sir Robert Peel. 

In reviewing a life so rich in public activity as Peel's it 
is impossible to point to any one important question as his 

107 



io8 Ten Englishmen 

particular contribution to the history of his time. There 
was scarcely a single great parliamentary battle in which 
he did not bear a hand on one side or the other. Indeed, 
hostile criticism has censured him for having in not a few 
instances carried to ultimate success the very measures of 
which, when first proposed, he had been the stoutest 
enemy. This is true of the Resumption of Specie Pay- 
ments, the Catholic Emancipation Acts, and most notably 
of all the repeal of the Corn Laws. The characteristics 
which resulted so strangely may be accounted for in part 
at least by some knowledge of the early life of the great 
parliamentary leader. 

The Peels were weavers and printers of calicoes. The 
father of the Prime Minister was one of the wealthiest 
manufacturers in his generation, a thorough-going Tory, 
and an ardent admirer of Mr. Pitt. He was sent to 
Parliament in 1 790, and his support of the government by 
his vote there, and by his contribution of fifty thousand 
pounds to the war fund, won for him, in 1 800, a baronetcy. 
There had been Robert Peels before his day, but now for 
the first time there was a Sir Robert. 

Sir Robert's most loving care was lavished upon the 
training of his eldest son and namesake, who from the day 
of his birth, February 5, 1788, the patriotic father had 
prayerfully consecrated to the service of his country. 
Many stories are told of the pains which the great calico- 
printer bestowed on the lad's training for a public career. 
We see the little lad standing on a table to declaim or 
recite to his parental mentor, and read of the rigor of 
cross-examination to which this lad of twelve was subjected 
after hearing a sermon or public address. A current 
anecdote represents the doting father as saying, ** Bob, 



Peel and Administrative Reforms 109 

you dog, if you're not prime minister, I'll disinherit you." 
At Harrow, as a schoolboy he reflected credit upon his 
father's training, and at Christ Church, Oxford, he achieved 
the unusual honor of a double first class (classics and mathe- 
matics) . When he left the university at the age of twenty- 
one his father provided him with a seat in Parliament, and 
so, with every favoring circumstance of youth, health, 
education, friends, and wealth, he began his eventful 
career in the House of Commons which was to be the 
scene of his best labors until the day of his death. 

Old Sir Robert and his son sat on the same side of the 
House, but the alert and active mind of the young man 
could not accept untested his father's pohtical creed of 
hide-bound Toryism. The first question upon which the 
son and father parted company was on the subject of the 
resumption of specie payments, which had been discon- 
tinued in 1797 under the financial stress of the war with 
France. In 181 1 the two Peels voted together against a 
resolution looking toward resumption, but the younger 
man's mind was fascinated with the economic aspects of 
the problem, and half 3. dozen years later, when the sub- 
ject again pressed for settlement, he brought forward the 
act which placed England on a gold basis. The father 
openly bewailed the son's misguided course, but Peel's 
act became the law (1819). 

Before he was thirty, the younger Robert Peel had 
gained a valuable exp,erience in administrative work by a 
term of six years (18 12-18 18) as Chief Secretary for 
Ireland. Here, as in the preparation of his studies at 
Oxford and of his speeches for the House of Commons, 
he was painstaking, methodical, thorough, and energetic. 
In fact he applied to the public business the same sterling 



no Ten Englishmen 

qualities which had made his father and grandfather suc- 
cessful merchants and manufacturers. His most notable 
reform in Ireland, which was then in a sad condition of 
disorder, was the replacement of military rule by a well- 
organized civil force of pohce, acting under the orders of 
the magistrates. He favored a more liberal scheme of 
popular education for the unhappy island, but his Tory 
prejudices stood in the way of relieving the Catholics of 
their disabilities. Because of his avowed opposition to 
this demand, and his bitter hostihty to O'Connell, the 
champion of the cause, Mr. Peel — ''Orange" Peel, as the 
Catholic Irish nicknamed him — had the satisfaction of 
being returned to Parliament in 1817 for the University 
of Oxford, perhaps the most ultra-Tory constituency in 
the three kingdoms. 

In January, 1822, Peel entered the cabinet of Lord 
Liverpool as Home Secretary. From the first he showed 
that his mind was not impenetrable to the legal reforms 
which earnest men had long been advocating, but to which 
the Tories had turned a deaf ear. The reform of the 
criminal law, which still carried the harsh statutes of an 
unquiet age, had been ably championed by Romilly, 
Mackintosh, and others, but it was Peel's way first to 
oppose, then to admit the principle of the reform, and 
finally to enact it into enduring law. On his initiative, in 
1823, ''nearly one hundred felonies were removed from 
the fist of capital crimes, and judges were empowered to 
withhold the death penalty in all cases except murder, 
when the culprit appeared deserving of mercy." Other 
acts originating with him consolidated and unified the 
vast and complex body of criminal statutes so as to sim- 
plify procedure, and facihtate the ends of justice. Some 



Peel and Administrative Reforms 1 1 1 

conception of his services in this particular may be gained 
from the fact that *'he secured the repeal of two hundred 
and seventy -eight acts relating to the criminal law, 
embodying their useful provisions in eight acts." 

On Catholic emancipation Peel's process of conversion 
was slower. He steadily fought the proposals for relief 
in the House of Commons as long as Lord Liverpool 
lived, and when Canning succeeded to the premiership 
(1827), he resigned rather than serve under a pro-Catho- 
lic chief. When the Tories came back to power under 
Wellington, in 1828, Peel resumed the Home Secretary- 
ship, with the leadership of the House of Commons, a 
position for which he possessed incomparable qualifica- 
tions. His second administration of the home department 
was distinguished by a series of radical improvements in 
the criminal laws. One law for the punishment of offenses 
against the person took the place of fifty-seven existing 
acts. In 1829 he replaced the ridiculous London watch 
with the police force which has served as a model for many 
other large cities. Many who speak familiarly of the blue- 
coated guardians of the peace as ** Bobbies" and "Peelers" 
would be surprised to know that these sobriquets constitute 
a popular tribute to the name of Robert Peel, the creator 
of the model force. 

These legal and administrative reforms, beneficent as 
they were, were not great party questions like the two 
others which the Wellington government had to face, and 
gained so little credit in the facing. The Whigs, under 
John Russell, urged the demand for the relief of Protest- 
ant dissenters from their political disabilities by the repeal 
of the Test and Corporation Acts. Peel argued against 
the change, but it was carried, nevertheless, and the 



112 Ten Englishmen 

Tories accepted the measure with the best grace they 
could summon. Their resistance to Catholic emancipa- 
tion cost them more dearly. O'Connell, master of all the 
arts of agitation, fanned the excitement in Ireland into 
flame. His Catholic Association made itself heard, and 
felt, and feared. In June, 1828, a member of the govern- 
ment standing for election for County Clare was soundly 
defeated by O' Council himself, a man whom the anti- 
Catholic laws disqualified from sitting in Parliament. The 
government knew not which way to turn, and O'Connell, 
perceiving his advantage, lashed his followers to the verge 
of an insurrection. This was the question on which 
George III. had broken with William Pitt a generation 
before, and now it was only by the most vehement argu- 
ments, and even by threats of resignation, that the minis- 
ters could obtain his son's consent to the inevitable. In 
a speech of four hours' duration Peel explained the meas- 
ures to the House of Commons, confessing that the 
necessity under which he acted *'was the severest blow it 
had ever been his lotto experience." The speech was 
an admission of defeat, and an elaboration of the meas- 
ures by which the government, in the hour of concession, 
proposed to limit the "dangerous power of the Roman 
Catholics." The bill became a law, and the Irish Catholic 
members began to sit in Parliament — with some of the 
disturbing consequences which no one foresaw better than 
Peel himself. 

The Wellington ministry barely survived the strain of 
carrying Catholic emancipation. The year 1 830 found 
Sir Robert Peel — the elder baronet having died — the 
leader of the opposition. In this character he led his 
party against the Reform Bills of 1831-32. Their weak 



Peel and Administrative Reforms 113 

points were mercilessly laid bare, and the excellences and 
past glories of the existing system were effectively dis- 
played. But nothing at that day could stop the progress 
of reform, as the King and peers soon learned. 

The defeat of the Tories in the first general election 
under the Reform Act was overwhelming. They mustered 
less than one-fourth of the House of Commons. It seemed 
to most cool political observers that the Whigs who now 
assumed office could not be displaced for a decade at least. 
The spirit of change was alive in all the nations of west- 
ern Europe, and in England there seemed to be small need 
of a political party whose steady resistance to innovation 
was relieved only by the exceptions in which the party 
had espoused reform in extremity to save its own exist- 
ence. Wellington and the rigid Tories of his stripe saw 
no hope for their party, and little enough for England in 
the way along which she was plunging. Peel, however, 
was supremely suited to the times. Bound to the party 
of Church and Crown by the traditions of his father, he 
nevertheless was endowed with a mind which was not quite 
dominated by prejudice. The study of facts, the exami- 
nation of conflicting claims, the weighing of argument, 
had their full effect upon him, and he had the courage of 
his convictions. At this juncture, when so much was 
shifting which had anchored England to the past, Sir 
Robert Peel, with his clear-eyed vision, his trained judg- 
ment, his honesty, and his moderation, formed a rallying 
point for those Tories who had no other leader, and 
attracted to him moderate and enlightened men of what- 
ever party who feared the unbalanced radicalism of the 
day, and who were bent on preserving or conserving the 
best elements which remained of the ancient Constitution 



114 '^^^ Englishmen 

of England. From such accretions grew up a party which 
gradually dropped the name of Tory and adopted that of 
Conservative. One of Peel's biographers, writing of this 
period as Peel's opportunity, says: "Since Conservatism, 
hke Liberalism, is an imperishable instinct in human 
nature, every society must contain a Conservative party, 
and such a party speedily develops, even amid the wildest 
storm of revolution. The Reform Act of 1832 had made 
room for a Conservative party suited to the age. The 
Tories had been weak because their strength was confined 
to the landed interest. Possessed by a panic-dread of 
change, bred by the events of the French Revolution, they 
had refused to admit any new interests to a share of 
power. In their despite the Reform Act had transferred 
the control of politics from the aristocracy to the middle 
class. But the English middle class was naturally Con- 
servative. It was orderly, it was rich, it was sensitive to 
social influence, it was devout and serious in a stiff, 
unbending way. Some reforms certainly it required; an 
effective administration for the great towns where it lived 
and traded; the amendment of a poor law which shocked 
all its economic maxims ; the abolition of negro slavery 
which revolted its religion; the abolition of laws which, 
pressing hardly upon non-conformists, revolted its sense 
of justice. It had not yet declared for free trade, although 
it might be expected to do so. The ameliorations which 
the middle class at this time desired. Peel was ready to 
approve, and these amehorations once granted, the middle 
class would tend to be Conservative. But theirs would 
not be the conservatism of squires and rectors. They 
would incline to a conservatism of their own, and they 
would want a leader of their own to formulate it and to 



Peel and Administrative Reforms 115 

organize them. They would want a statesman who was 
bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh; a good man 
of business, cautious, but open to practical suggestions, 
one who would satisfy their ideal of industry and economy; 
one who would always be grave and decorous, never puzzle 
them with epigrams or alarm them with rhetoric ; in short, 
such a great man as they could conceive. Such Sir 
Robert Peel was. There never breathed a politician more 
truly congenial to them. He represented their virtues and 
their faihngs; he shared their talents and their prejudices; 
he was always growing in their confidence; and when he 
died lamented by all his fellow-citizens, he was most 
deeply lamented by them." 

With such tact and such mastery of the political situ- 
ation did Peel conduct himself in the years of opposition — 
now mildly criticising the government's policy, now joining 
forces with it, and now tearing its policies to pieces — that 
he constantly grew in the national esteem, and began to be 
looked upon as the inevitable successor of the Whigs. 
His turn came sooner than any one expected, in Decem- 
ber, 1834. It was too soon, in fact, for the first Peel 
ministry could maintain itself but a few months, failing to 
secure a majority of Parliament. Yet in this brief lease 
of power Peel gave evidence of his fitness to govern. He 
undertook the reform of the ecclesiastical courts, gratified 
the Dissenters by proposing to remove the regulations 
which required all marriages to be celebrated according to 
the rites of the Established Church. He even addressed 
himself to the delicate question of settling the temporali- 
ties of the Established Church in Ireland, where the 
collection of church tithes was accompanied with much 
disorder and distress, arising from the fact that the vast 



ii6 Ten Englishmen 

majority of the tithe-payers were hostile to the Protestant 
bishops and clergy whom they were taxed to support. 
The opposition, led by John Russell, took advantage of 
the prejudices surrounding this subject and forced a suc- 
cession of adverse votes, in consequence of which the Peel 
ministry abandoned office in April, 1835, after one hun- 
dred days of power — a period sometimes considered the 
most brilliant in Peel's whole career. 

For six years Sir Robert Peel remained in opposition, 
conducting himself so sagaciously as to gather about him 
all disaffected elements of the disintegrating majority. 
Peel saw to it that whatever popular measures of reform 
were carried by the Melbourne ministry should be credited 
largely to Conservative support. Wellington still survived 
as a great national figure, but his political influence was 
gone, and there was no one in the Whig or Liberal camp 
who could dispute Peel's position as the leading public 
man of England. Of his course at this time he said him- 
self (1838): ''My object is that by steadily attending to 
our duty, by censuring the government on all occasions 
when they deserve it, enforcing our principles by aiding 
them to carry those measures which we think right, even 
though by so doing we may be rescuing the government, 
we may establish new claims upon the approbation of the 
country." 

The majority of the House of Commons was made up 
of incongruous elements, whose interests were at variance 
on many questions. Peel actually came to the rescue of 
the ministers not once, but so many times as to give bitter- 
ness to the taunt hurled at them by a Radical orator: 
''Why! the right honorable member for Tam worth (Peel) 
governs England. The honorable and learned member 



Peel and Administrative Reforms 117 

for Dublin (O'Connell) governs England. The Whigs 
govern nothing but Downing Street. The right honorable 
member for Tamworth is contented with power without 
place or patronage, and the Whigs are contented with 
place and patronage without power!" 

Hard times came on and the nation faced an annual 
deficit. Distress was widespread among the people, 
nourishing the Chartist agitation on the one hand, and 
giving point to the arguments of the Anti-Corn Law ora- 
tors on the other. There was pressing need for a wise 
and energetic Prime Minister, and hope of such qualities 
in Lord Melbourne had long since failed. The general 
elections of 1 84 1 showed a clear majority for the Con- 
servatives, and in August Sir Robert Peel came back to 
power, backed by a consolidated party and trusted by the 
nation. 

The most pressing problems were financial. Peel pro- 
posed a modification of the Corn Law duties, at the same 
time defending the system of protection, not in the inter- 
ests of the agriculturist class, but to make England 
independent of foreign countries for its food supplies. 
His proposals were enacted into law. His first budget 
attempted to turn the customary deficit into a surplus by 
means of an income tax of seven pence in the pound on 
incomes of one hundred and fifty pounds and upward. 
His revision of the tariff on imports introduced important 
changes looking toward increased freedom of trade, espe- 
cially in the raw materials of manufacture. The times 
improved; revenue exceeded expenditure; consols were 
quoted at only a fraction below par, and two hundred and 
fifty million pounds of the national debt was converted 
from three and one-half per cent into a loan paying three 



1 1 8 Ten Englishmen 

and one-fourth per cent for ten years and three per cent 
thereafter. By another far-reaching measure — the Bank 
Charter Act — Peel placed salutary restrictions upon the 
issue of paper money, and increased his reputation as a 
master of financial legislation. 

From year to year, as the surplus revenue increased, 
the government employed it to cut down the duties upon 
imports. From wool, cotton, and glass, and many minor 
items they were entirely removed, and there were reduc- 
tions throughout the schedules. The grants in aid of 
education were trebled in the face of bitter protest from 
his own party. Education in Ireland was aided by grants 
to the Cathohc College at Maynooth and by the establish- 
ment of other "Queen's colleges" in afifihation with the 
university at Dublin. 

In one way and another Ireland played a great part in 
the history of this administration. In 1843 the agitation 
of O'Connell, for the repeal of the union of Ireland with 
England, culminated in immense and angry meetings 
which threatened the pubUc peace. The government then 
took the matter in hand, ''proclaimed" the gatherings and 
arrested O'Connell. It was the failure of the potato crop 
of 1845, and the consequent Irish famine which forced 
Peel to abandon the last stronghold of protection and 
recommend the total and absolute repeal forever of all 
duties on all articles of subsistence. The history of the 
repeal of the Corn Laws, in 1846, has already been given. 
On the day on which the bill passed to its third reading 
in the House of Lords, all the enemies of the government, 
led by Tory protectionists who considered themselves 
betrayed by their own Prime Minister combined to over- 
throw him. On a bill for the protection of Hfe in Ireland 



Peel and Administrative Reforms 119 

Peel was defeated by seventy-three votes. Four days 
later, on relinquishing his place at the head of the govern- 
ment he pronounced his memorable valedictory. He 
should leave a name, he said, severely censured by 
many who deeply regretted the severance of party ties, 
censured also by all sincere protectionists. *'I shall leave 
a name execrated by every monopolist who, from less 
honorable motives, clamors for protection because it con- 
duces to his own individual benefit. But it may be that I 
shall leave a name sometimes remembered with expres- 
sions of good will in the abodes of those whose lot it is to 
labor and to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their 
brow, wh5n they shall recruit their exhausted strength 
with abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is 
no longer leavened by a sense of injustice." 

Peel never returned to office. His conversion to free 
trade had split his party, and the Whigs, under John 
Russell, succeeded to the direction of affairs. He re- 
mained in the House of Commons, and with such personal 
following as yet remained to him, supported the adminis- 
tration. The protectionists were ralhed and led by 
George Bentinck and Benjamin Disraeli, whose star 
waxed as Peel's began to wane. Death put a sudden 
end to his activity. He was thrown from his horse 
while riding up Constitution Hill in London, and died 
on the second of July, 1 850. In accordance with his 
expressed wish, his family declined the honors of a 
public funeral, and he was buried without ostentation in 
the family tomb at Drayton Bassett. His statue, voted 
by the House of Commons, was placed in Westminster 
Abbey. 

The Duke of Wellington, in his simple way, said of 



I20 Ten Englishmen 

his late associate: "I never knew a man in whose truth 
and justice I had a more hvely confidence, or in whom I 
saw a more invariable desire to promote the public ser- 
vice. In the whole course of my communication with 
him I never knew an instance in which he did not show 
the strongest attachment to truth; and I never saw in the 
whole course of my life the smallest reason for suspecting 
that he stated anything which he did not firmly believe to 
be the fact." Remarkable testimony this, concerning a 
great politician. From Disraeli, who would perhaps be 
less drawn to this qualification of a statesman, comes this 
word of praise, with many of detraction: ** Nature had 
combined in Sir Robert Peel many admirable parts. In 
him a physical frame incapable of fatigue was united with 
an understanding equally vigorous and flexible. He was 
gifted with the faculty of method in the highest degree, 
and with great powers of application, which were sustained 
by a prodigious memory, while he could communicate his 
acquisitions with clear and fluent elocution. Such a man 
under any circumstances and in any sphere of life would 
probably have become remarkable. Ordained from his 
youth to be busied with the affairs of a great empire, such 
a man, after long years of observation, practice, and per- 
petual discipline, would have become what Sir Robert Peel 
was in the latter portion of his life — a transcendent 
administrator of public business and a matchless master of 
debate in a popular assembly." 

The masterly debater never rose to heights of elo- 
quence. His thorough and practical mind enabled him to 
study, sift, and give form and substance to the broad 
political and economic conceptions of more idealistic 
men. Inheriting the narrow political creed of his father, 



Peel and Administrative Reforms 121 

he can scarcely be blamed if his mind came slowly to 
advanced positions. Rather shall he not be commended 
who, with such prepossessions and prejudices, and with 
such party co-workers, keeps his mind open to conviction? 
"The resumption of cash payments, the amendment of 
the criminal law, the institution of the Irish constabulary 
and the London police. Catholic emancipation and the 
emancipation of trade, and a host of reforms only less 
beneficial than these make up a record of useful labor 
which has seldom been surpassed." 

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 

1. What unusual preparation had Peel for his public 
career ? 

2. Upon what political question did he and his father sep- 
arate ? 

3. Describe his relations to Ireland as Chief Secretary. 

4. What services did he render to criminal law ? 

5. What police reform is due to him ? 

6. What two famous party questions did he resist, but 
finally of necessity accept ? 

7. Why was Peel especially fitted to lead the new Con- 
servative party, formed after 1832 ? 

8. What fitness to govern did Peel show in his first ministry ? 

9. How did he serve his country as a member of the 
opposition ? 

10. How did he meet the financial needs of England in his 
second ministry ? 

11. How did his enemies finally overthrow him ? 

12. Why is Peel's life, in view of his inheritance, especially 
worthy of honor ? 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Sir Robert Peel. J. R. Thursfield. 
Sir Robert Peel. Justin McCarthy. 
Biographical Studies. Walter Bagehot. 



VIII 

SHAFTESBURY AND PHILANTHROPY 

[Antony Ashley Cooper, Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, born 
April 28, 1801; died October i, 1885; educated at Harrow 
and Christ Church, Oxford (first-class in classics, 1822); 
Member of Parliament 1826; bore a leading hand in legisla- 
tion for improving condition of laboring classes; President 
of Ragged School Union, etc.; succeeded to the earldom on 
the death of his father, in 185 1.] 

The industrial expansion of England in the nineteenth 
century was not a blessing unalloyed. It built great cities 
and created enormous wealth, and gave employment at 
advanced wages to a vastly increased population. But it 
brought with it changes in the social condition of the 
laboring classes which were productive of severe hardship. 

The England of the olden time had been an agricultural 
country whose laborers, though poorly paid, either worked 
under mild conditions in the fields, or followed their trades 
in their cottages and workshops. The introduction of the 
steam engine brought with it a demand for fuel which 
forced thousands of men, women, and children to delve in 
the mines, and the use of machines and the adoption of 
the factory system shut up other thousands of both sexes, 
and all ages, to labor for excessive hours in crowded cities 
under unsanitary conditions. At the present time the 
system of legislation regarding the employment of women 
and minors, and the regulation of unsanitary conditions of 

122 



Shaftesbury and Philanthropy 123 

labor is so thorough that it is difficult to conceive that it 
has all been of recent growth. When the enemies of the 
abuses in mine and factory first raised their voices in the 
British Parliament, they were even told that such things 
were not proper subjects of legislation. In the opening 
years of the century the elder Robert Peel had attacked 
one of the foulest of industrial abuses — the ** apprentice 
system." Under this system the pauper children of Lon- 
don and the south of England were rented out to the 
tender mercies of the avaricious cotton manufacturers of 
the north. From the age of seven they were compelled 
to work in the mills at long hours, under unhealthful con- 
ditions, and without opportunity of education or proper 
recreation. When not at work they were huddled in com- 
fortless barracks little better than slave-pens. No wonder 
they grew up to be hopeless and brutalized, if they were 
so unfortunate as to survive the arduous period of their 
industrial bondage — for it was no less than that. Peel's 
act of 1802, and other remedial legislation which supple- 
mented it, did away with the worst features of this white 
slavery, but the general condition of the women and chil- 
dren in the English factories and mines continued to be 
such as to move deeply the sympathies of the humane. 

In the year 1833 the little group of humanitarian lead- 
ers who had succeeded in turning the attention of the 
nation to the disgraceful condition of child labor, were 
striving to get a hearing in the House of Commons for 
their "short time" proposal — a law framed by Michael 
Thomas Sadler, for the purpose of limiting the hours of 
child labor in textile factories to ten hours a day. Sadler 
had lost his seat in Parliament, and a new spokesman was 
needed for the cause. The committee ventured to ask 



124 Ten Englishmen 

Lord Ashley to take charge of the bill, and his accept- 
ance enlisted in the humanitarian movement a young 
man who was destined to be its champion for half a 
century. 

Antony Ashley Cooper, then sitting in the House of 
Commons under the name of Lord Ashley, and after 
185 1 known to the world as the seventh Earl of Shaftes- 
bury, was one of the most remarkable Englishmen of the 
century. This new-found champion of the working- 
classes was born in London, April 28, 1801. His father 
was the sixth Earl of Shaftesbury, and his mother was a 
daughter of the third Earl of Marlborough. The father's 
preoccupation in public life and his mother's social duties 
left the early home training of the lad to a pious domestic, 
an earnest Christian, whose precepts and example did 
more than anything else to give bent to his life. In later 
years the Earl freely owned his mother's housekeeper to be 
the best friend he had ever had. He did little to distin- 
guish himself as a schoolboy at Harrow, but Oxford 
appealed to him, and he applied himself to classical studies 
at the university with a zeal which won for him a degree 
with the first honors. 

Parliament was the natural place for a peer's son in 
those days of pocket boroughs, and into the House of 
Commons he went as Lord Ashley at the age of twenty- 
five. In his diary he recorded his devout purpose to use 
his position "for the success of religion and true happi- 
ness," and on taking the oaths he "breathed a slight 
prayer for assistance in thoughts and deeds." A man of 
profound introspection, intense religious feeling, and sin- 
cere purpose to be of service to his kind, had some diffi- 
culty in adjusting himself to the selfish poHtics of the 



Shaftesbury and Philanthropy 115 

House. The first subject upon which he found voice was 
the reform of the laws for the care of lunatic paupers, a 
class whose pitiable state might have moved the most 
stolid heart. To this merciful project he addressed him- 
self with a zeal and persistency which were to characterize 
his later efforts for other downtrodden classes. 

When the labor leaders turned to him, in 1 83 3, to 
champion their cause, he took the question into consider- 
ation over night, obtained his wife's cordial approval, 
consulted his Bible, resorted to prayer, and the next day 
gave himself unreservedly to the cause. His friends of 
the aristocratic families shunned him, his parents dis- 
countenanced his design and closed their doors against 
him for many years, but, said he, in dedication of him- 
self to the work, "I believe it is my duty to God and to 
the poor, and I trust He will support me." 

The manufacturers sought to side-track the Ten-Hours 
Bill by proposing that nothing should be done until a 
committee of Parliament should make thorough inquiry 
into the alleged conditions in the mills. But the very 
commission which they asked for could not go against 
the evidence of their own eyes in the factory towns, swarm- 
ing with ignorant, ragged child-operatives, prematurely 
old. The commission reported: (l) that the work hours 
of children and adults were the same; (2) that such labor 
was resulting in the permanent physical and intellectual 
deterioration of the young; (3) that these maltreated 
children were not free agents, but hired out by parents or 
guardians; and finally, **that a case was made out for the 
interference of the legislature on behalf of the children 
employed in factories." 

In place of the radical measure of Lord Ashley the 



126 Ten Englishmen 

government carried a substitute, the Factory Law of 
1833. "Night work was prohibited to persons under 
eight even in cotton, wool, worsted, hemp, flax, tow, and 
Hnen spinneries and weaving mills; children from nine to 
thirteen were not allowed to work more than forty-eight 
hours a week, and young persons thirteen to eighteen were 
restricted to sixty-eight hours a week. In silk factories 
children might be admitted under nine, and childen under 
thirteen were to be allowed ten hours a day. Provision 
was made for a certain amount of school attendance, and 
factory inspectors were provided to inquire into violations 
of the statute." At the time Ashley and his friends 
bewailed the passage of the Factory Act as a defeat, 
though the former eventually admitted that '*it contained 
some humane and highly useful provisions, and established 
for the first time the great principle that labor and educa- 
tion should be combined." 

Defeat, if that be a defeat, which forces your foe to 
adopt your own principles in order to win, only proved 
Lord Ashley's superior fitness for the leadership of the 
cause. Instead of abandoning the contest he began to 
prepare for a fresh assault by collecting information 
touching every pai*t of the question. He visited the work- 
rooms and lodgings of the operatives in every part of the 
land, examining at first hand their condition, and studying 
the problem in all its bearings with the same persistency 
and intellectual force which had won him his "first-class" 
at the university. Nothing which could subserve his 
cause escaped his searching inquiry, and when he arose to 
address Parliament his mastery of his subject was so com- 
plete as to baffle the skill of the few who durst ask him 
questions. 



Shaftesbury and Philanthropy 127 

As the Anti-Corn Law gained ground the labor reform- 
ers met with a new form of opposition. Lord Ashley 
was taunted with inconsistency in seeking the welfare of 
the factory workers, while neglecting to remedy the no less 
servile condition of the agricultural laborers. Manufac- 
turers as high-minded as Cobden and Bright did not 
scruple to say — as doubtless they believed — that the out- 
cry against the manufacturers sprang from the desire of 
the landowners to harass the opponents of "the tax on 
bread." John Bright answered Lord Ashley's arguments 
for the ten hours' clause in the bill of 1844 in a speech as 
vindictive as it was eloquent. Though Ashley was again 
defeated, at this time the new Factory Act, which was 
passed, carried farther the principles of the original law. 
In 1845 his calico print-works measure brought relief to 
thousands of weary little hands, and in 1847 the long- 
worked-for and earnestly prayed-for Ten-Hours Bill 
became a law. Lord Ashley had resigned his seat in 
Parliament, but had not relaxed his efforts in behalf of 
the bill which he had borne on his heart for fourteen 
years. When the news came that the bill, after going 
through the Commons with flying colors, had passed the 
critical stage in the Upper House, Lord Ashley's feelings 
found vent in this entry in his journal: *'I am humbled 
that my heart is not bursting with thankfulness to 
Almighty God — that I can find breath and sense to ex- 
press my joy. What reward shall we give unto the Lord 
for all the benefits he hath conferred upon us.-* God, in 
his mercy, prosper the work and grant that these opera- 
tives may receive the cup of salvation, and call upon the 
name of the Lord! Praised be the Lord! Praised be 
the Lord in Christ Jesus ! ' ' The operatives received the 



128 Ten Englishmen 

news with tumultuous joy, for the act brought substantial 
relief to fully three hundred and sixty thousand persons, 
more than two-thirds of all the operatives then employed 
in the textile industries of the kingdom. 

The manufacturers who attributed Ashley's professions 
of friendship for their employees to his class hatred of their 
masters little knew the man. His sympathies were 
engaged in behalf of the poor and weak in every calling, 
and the mill-hands were only the first whose cause he 
championed. The manufacturers had sometimes sought 
to divert attention from their own shortcomings by point- 
ing to the greater hardship of the colliery workers, and in 
1840 Lord Ashley took up this subject by moving for a 
parliamentary commission to inquire into the employment 
of the children of the poorer classes in mines and collier- 
ies. The first report of this commission, issued in 1842, 
is one of the most appalling of public documents. Sworn 
testimony was presented to show that much of the under- 
ground labor was performed by children under thirteen 
years of age, and that little boys and girls were set to 
work in the dark and noisome tunnels at the age of five. 
First as *' trappers" these child laborers opened ^nd shut 
the trap-doors in the passages of the mine. The stronger 
children, boys and girls alike, dragged and pushed the 
little coal wagons along the narrow passages — the roofs 
too low for them to stand upright, often so low as to 
compel them to creep on all-fours in the black slime of 
the floors. Some with laden baskets on their backs 
climbed many times a day up steep ascents. Some stood 
ankle-deep in water from morning till night in the 
depths of the pit, wearing out their little lives at the hand- 
pumps. 



Shaftesbury and Philanthropy 129 

"The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, 

The young birds are chirping in the nest; 
The young fawns are playing with the shadows, 

The young flowers are blowing toward the west. 
But the young, young children, O my brothers, 

They are weeping bitterly ! 
They are weeping in the playtime of the others, 

In the country of the free." 

So sang Elizabeth Barrett of the sorrows of the children 
of the mines and mills in those dismal days, and it must 
be said for the great heart of England that its beat was 
still true. The coal-owners made the pitiful plea in 
extenuation of all the misery and indecency of the mines 
that without the labor of women and children the collieries 
must shut down, not only for lack of profit, but for the 
cogent reason that the flexible vertebrae of childhood 
were especially adapted to the constrained positions 
required in the tunnels, and that there could be no good 
colliers unless as children they became inured to the priva- 
tions and hardships of the life. The government tried to 
keep the report out of the hands of the indignant public, 
but **by a most providential mistake," as Lord Ashley 
believed, it got into circulation, to the horror and disgust 
of all right-minded persons. The press joined in the cry 
for remedial legislation. Ashley's speech in support of 
his Mines and Collieries Bill made an unusual impression 
in the House of Commons. Even Cobden, who had been 
ready to sneer at the ** philanthropists" who opposed the 
repeal of the tax on bread, came over to the orator's side 
at the conclusion of his two hours' plea, and wringing his 
hand heartily, declared, "I don't think I have ever been 
put into such a frame of mind in all my life." From this 
time he no longer entertained doubts of Ashley's sincerity. 



ijo Ten Englishmen 

The Queen and Prince Albert added their personal sup- 
port. The government threw obstacles in the way of the 
bill, and the peers mutilated it, but Ashley's persistency 
carried it at last. Henceforth women and girls and boys 
under ten were excluded from underground work, and a 
system of mine inspection was established to secure the 
observance of the law. Such a triumph for morality and 
humanity was worth more to England than many battles 
won by force of arms. 

There has been no retreat from the positions to which 
Lord Ashley carried the legislative protection of the 
working-classes. From time to time the Factory Laws 
were extended to cover the special demands of other 
industries, until the state had literally taken under its 
protection the whole class of children and young persons 
employed in manufacturing industries. It has done this 
in the name of the moral and physical health of the com- 
munity. The general laws governing factories and work- 
shops now cover a very wide scope. It is required that 
the building must be kept clean and sanitary; that 
dangerous machinery must be boxed and fenced; the hours 
of labor and meal-time for women and children are fixed, 
and children under ten may not be employed; certain 
holidays and half-holidays must be allowed to all ''pro- 
tected" persons; child- workers must go to school a certain 
proportion of the week; medical certificates of fitness for 
employment are required in the case of children; and 
notice of accidents causing loss of life or bodily injury 
must be sent to the government inspector. Many 
co-operated to bring about these results, but the chief 
advocate of all the beneficent reforms which have rein- 
vigorated the English working-classes, saved the women 



Shaftesbury and Philanthropy 131 

from slavish toil and given them opportunity to make 
homes for their families, rescued the children from 
benumbing toil, and given them time for healthful recrea- 
tion and mental improvement, is, by the common award of 
all, this simple-hearted Christian, Antony Ashley Cooper. 

On the fly-leaf of a book in his library the Earl of 
Shaftesbury noted in pencil some of the obstacles which 
beset his progress when seeking the good of the distressed 
children: "I had to break every political connection, to 
encounter a most formidable array of capitalists, mill- 
owners, doctrinaries, and men who by natural impulse 
hate all 'humanity mongers' (tell it not in Gath!) among 
the Radicals, the Irishmen, and a few sincere Whigs and 

Conservatives Peel was hostile Fielden 

and Brotherton were the only 'practical' men who sup- 
ported me, and to practical prophecies of overthrow of 
trade, of ruin to the operatives themselves, I could only 
oppose 'humanity' and general principles. The news- 
papers were on the whole friendly. Out of Parliament 
there was in society every form of 'good-natured' and 

compassionate contempt In few instances did any 

mill-owner appear on a platform with me; in still fewer 
the ministers of any religious denomination — so cowed 
were they (or in themselves so indifferent) by the over- 
whelming influence of the cotton-lords." 

Among his opponents Shaftesbury reckoned Peel, who 
continually sought to silence him by giving him govern- 
ment offices; Bright, whose malignant opposition has 
already been noticed; Cobden, though latterly a convert; 
O'Connell, Brougham, and even Gladstone, "the only 
member who voted to delay the bill which delivered women 
and children from the mines and pits." 



132 Ten Englishmen 

It is foreign to the purpose of this sketch to pursue the 
later labors of Lord Shaftesbury; his zeal for education; 
his warm espousal of the cause of ragged schools for the 
instruction of the waifs of the London streets; his suc- 
cessful agitation in favor of the pitiable chimney-sweeps; 
in short, his support of every cause which appealed to his 
sympathy for the neglected classes, or which promised to 
benefit humanity physically, morally, intellectually, or 
spiritually. He was the president of scores of organiza- 
tions devoted to Christian and philanthropic work, and 
until the close of his long and useful life, his voice and 
influence could always be counted on to assist such worthy 
causes. As his end approached his only regret was ^'I 
cannot bear to leave the world with all the misery in it." 
The Dean of Westminster's suggestion that the Abbey 
should be his last resting-place, he brushed aside in favor 
of the parish church of St. Giles, where his boyhood 
had been passed. He died on the ist of October, 1885, 
at Folkestone, where he had been taken for the invigorat- 
ing sea breezes. Perhaps the old Abbey Church of West- 
minster never saw a funeral where so many classes of 
English society gathered to pay respect to a dead earl. 
Costermongers, climbing-boys, boot-blacks, cripples, 
flower-girls sat with royalty, bishops, peers, and com- 
moners in sincere mourning for a nobleman who was 
indeed a noble man. 

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 

1. What social changes accompanied the industrial expan- 
sion of England ? 

2. What was the " apprentice system " ? 

3. Under what influences did Lord Ashley pass his child- 
hood and youth ? 



Shaftesbury and Philanthropy 133 

4. How was the Factory Law of 1833 secured, and what did 
it require ? 

5. How did Lord Ashley prepare for a new Factory Act ? 

6. What opposition did he meet from the Anti-Corn Law 
workers ? 

7. How was the passage of the " Ten-Hours Bill" in 1847 
received ? 

8. What conditions were revealed by the report on mines 
and collieries ? 

9. Describe the events which led to the passage of Ash- 
ley's bill ? 

10. What factory laws have since been enacted ? 

11. What various kinds of opposition did Shaftesbury meet 
in his efforts for reform ? 

12. To what other needy causes did he devote the remain- 
ing years of his life ? 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Life and Work of Lo?-d Shaftesbury. Edwin Hodder. 
History of the Factory Movement. Alfred. 



IX 

LORD PALMERSTON AND FOREIGN RELATIONS 

[Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston, born October 20, 
1784, near Romsey, Hampshire; died October 18, 1865, 
Brocket Hall; succeeded to the title and the Irish peerage 
in 1802; educated at Harrow and Cambridge; Member of 
Parliament, 1807; at once made a Junior Lord of the Ad- 

^ miralty; 1809-1828, Secretary at War; about 1830 joined 
Whig party; 1830-41, 1846-51, Secretary for Foreign Affairs; 
1852-55, Home Secretary; 1855-58, 1859-65, Prime Minister 
and First Lord of the Treasury. Buried in Westminster 
Abbey.] 

The Peace is the accepted name for the condition which 
succeeded in England the generation which had been spent 
in the wars with France and the first Napoleon. For 
forty years after the Battle of Waterloo (18 1 5), this con- 
dition was unruffled by actual hostilities between England 
and any European power, unless that "untoward event" 
the Battle of Navarino (1827) and the bombardment of 
Antwerp (1832) should be so considered. Petty wars 
with the native princes of India and on the Afghan fron- 
tier occurred from time to time, it is true, and the infa- 
mous Opium War was waged against China (1839-42), 
but until the Crimean Campaigns (1853-56) and the 
Indian Mutiny (1857) the war spirit of the nation was 
never stirred to its depths. Continental Europe during 
these years passed through many convulsions. Bloody 
revolutions shook many states, and Prussia, Austria, 

134 



Lord Palmerston and Foreign Relations 135 

Denmark, Turkey, and Italy were involved in wars. The 
hand that piloted England among the rocks of the tortuous 
channel of foreign politics for nearly a generation was 
that of Lord Palmerston, for nearly twenty years Foreign 
Secretary and twice Prime Minister of the Queen's gov- 
ernment. 

Henry John Temple was the descendant of an historic 
English family, and was born on the Temple estates at 
Broadlands in Hampshire, October 20, 1784. He was, 
therefore, four years older than Sir Robert Peel, whom he 
long survived, and twelve years the senior of his sometime 
colleague. Lord John Russell. From Harrow, where he 
was reckoned the jolliest boy in the school, and the plucki- 
est fighter, he was sent to Edinburgh in charge of Dugald 
Stewart, one of the great Scottish teachers of the time, 
and thence, after three years under exceptional educative 
influences, to Cambridge. His father's death had given 
him the title of Viscount Palmerston in the Irish peerage, 
and before receiving his degree, his ambition led him to 
offer himself to the university as its candidate for the 
House of Commons. Though rejected there, a pocket 
borough was provided for him, and in 1807, at the age of 
twenty-three, he took his seat as a member for Newtown, 
a borough in which he had never set foot. An oflice was 
soon found for him in the Perceval government as Secre- 
tary at War, a post which was charged with the supervis- 
ion and control of military expenditure and accounts — no 
small responsibility at this juncture. During his score of 
years in this capacity the young Palmerston gave evidence 
of superior abilities as a bureau chief, while on the floor of 
the House his speeches marked him as a stanch asserter 
of the power of England, and a dangerous man to trifle 



136 Ten Englishmen 

with — so quick and powerful was his gift of repartee. 
During the brief ministries of Canning and Goderich he 
received flattering offers of advancement, leaving the 
cabinet in May, 1828, with Canning's followers, who 
opposed the government of Wellington. 

The young aristocrat who had impressed some of his 
school-fellows as having no ambitions higher than to be a 
courtier, had forsaken ** pigtail Toryism," as he called it, 
and was developing along liberal lines. He had been a 
consistent advocate of Catholic emancipation, an admirer 
of Canning's broad views, and hospitable to moderate 
propositions for the reform of Parliament. When Lord 
Grey's government was formed, in 1830, he naturally 
accepted office under it, becoming what he had long 
wished to be, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. 
Except for a few months he was the spokesman of Eng- 
land in the world's councils until the downfall of the 
Whigs, m 1 84 1. 

/- For the duties of his office Palmerston had many qualifi- 
cations . His long training in public business ; his familiarity 
not only with the languages of western Europe, but with 
foreign public men, and the national customs and pecu- 
liar modes of thought and feeling; his social faculty which 
gave him ready access to the minds of others ; and his un- 
failing confidence in his country and in himself, brought 
him well off from a hundred diplomatic battles. As time 
went on the nation recognized in him some of its own 
most striking characteristics, and his popularity at last 
transcended party lines. In Lord Palmerston "John Bull" 
recognized himself. 

Of the governing principles of his foreign policy 
Palmerston's own statement, made in 1848, is as good as 



Lord Palmerston and Foreign Relations 137 

can be given. It was not based upon any permanent 
alliance with other states, but provided for such freedom 
of action as should secure the * 'balance of power" in 
Europe, lest any single state should become a menace, 
like France in the Napoleonic era. Palmerston's state- 
ment was, **As long as England sympathizes with right 
and justice she will never find herself alone. She is sure 
to find some other state of sufficient power, influence, and 
weight to support and aid her in the course she may think 
fit to pursue. Therefore I say that it is a narrow policy 
to suppose that this country or that is marked out as the 
perpetual ally or the perpetual enemy of England. We 
have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. 
Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests 
it is our duty to follow. And if I might be allowed to 
express in one sentence the principle which I think ought 
to guide an English minister, I would adopt the expres- 
sion of Canning, and say that with every British ministry 
the interests of England ought to be the shibboleth of 
policy." 

The achievement of Belgian independence was the first 
and almost greatest success of the new Foreign Secretary. 
When the powers at Vienna, in 181 5, were rearranging 
the map of Europe they had joined Belgium with Holland 
as the kingdom of the Netherlands, with the idea of fore- 
stalling any further advance of France in that quarter. 
The union was unnatural. Race, language, and religion 
were opposed to it, and in 1830, the Belgians revolted. 
A congress of the powers met in London to labor for a 
peaceful solution. Between the claims of Holland and 
the aggressive policy of France, a rupture was with diffi- 
culty avoided. But eventually, by tact and firmness, 



138 Ten Englishmen 

Palmerston had his way, and Belgium became an indepen- 
dent state, without precipitating a general European war. 
The formation of the Quadruple Alliance was the next 
incident* in this vigorous foreign policy. Portugal and 
Spain were plunged in civil wars, the pretenders, Don 
Miguel and Don Carlos, attempting to wrest the scepter 
from the hands of the constitutional queens. Austria, 
preparing to interfere in behalf of despotism, was met, in 
1834, by the announcement that a treaty of alliance had 
been signed by the four powers — England, France, Spain, 
and Portugal. Though it remained in force but a short 
time it served its purpose. 

L The Eastern Question next took on threatening form. 
Mehemet Ali, Pasha of Egypt, rose against the Turkish 
Sultan, and his son, Ibrahim, invaded Syria and threat- 
ened Constantinople itself. The Turkish empire seemed 
about to break in two, France supporting the Pasha, and 
so gaining a foothold in Egypt, and Russia befriending 
the Porte, and advancing her frontier to the Bosphorus. 
Such a consummation would have interposed two hostile 
powers between England and her Indian empire. In July, 
1840, Palmerston completed the Quadrilateral AlHance, 
by which England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia agreed 
to restore peace in the Porte's dominions. This bold 
stroke, backed by England's warlike attitude, and Palmer- 
ston's characteristic threat that ''Mehemet Ali will just be 
chucked into the Nile" took the spirit out of the French 
government. Mehemet Ali was left to make the best 
terms he could with the Quadrilateral, and the crisis was 
at an end. This was in July, 1 841. The next month 
the Whig ministry fell, and Sir Robert Peel returned to 
power. Palmerston went out of office with flying colors. 



Lord Palmerston and Foreign Relations 139 

**He had created Belgium, saved Portugal and Spain 
from Absolutism, rescued Turkey from Russia, and the 
highway to India from France." It is true that the pic- 
ture had another side, and that the very brilliancy of his 
moves, the cleverness with which he played the game of 
diplomacy, and his recklessness of the interests of foreign 
courts left feelings of bitterness and defeat in the hearts 
of many European and American statesmen. His ene- 
mies called him a bully, and denounced his methods as 
"high handed," but his countrymen were satisfied. 

From 1 84 1 to 1846, as a member of the opposition, 
the ex-Minister exercised his functions as a critic of the 
spiritless foreign policy of Lord Aberdeen, for which he 
could find no better name than "antiquated imbecility." 
Upon Peel's overthrow, after the repeal of the Corn 
Laws ( 1 846 ) , he resumed the foreign portfolio in the 
Cabinet of Lord John Russell. 

U At once the question of the "Spanish marriages" 
became acute. King Louis Philippe of France, and his 
Minister, Guizot, had been plotting to marry the child- 
queen, Isabella of Spain, to her worthless cousin, Don 
Francisco, and her sister, the Infanta, to the Due de 
Montpensier, Louis Philippe's brother, with results most 
promising to the King and to France, but most distasteful 
to England, as Palmerston was prompt to declare, "Such 
an objection on our part may seem uncourteous and may 
be displeasing, but the friendships of states and govern- 
ments must be founded on natural interests and not upon 
personal likings." Yet despite these protests, the mar- 
riages were celebrated. France seemed to have outwitted 
Palmerston for once. But vengeance was not long 
delayed. The "Citizen King" had few friends among 



140 Ten Englishmen 

the monarchical states of the Continent, and in forfeiting 
the friendship of England he kicked away one of the props 
of his own throne. Within two years came the Revolu- 
tion of 1848, which cost him his crown. 

Eighteen hundred and forty-eight was a year of revolu- 
tions. Throughout western Europe the popular aspira- 
tions were struggling for expression. Constitutional 
government was clamorously demanded, and the despot- 
ism which had ground the Italian states under the heel of 
Hapsburg and Bourbon was for the moment shaken. 
Through her outspoken Foreign Secretary England let her 
liberal sympathies be known, but even Palmerston was 
careful to keep within the bounds of peaceful protest, 
avoiding all provocation to war. 

V In April, 1847, ^.t Athens, the house of Don Pacifico, 
a Portuguese Jew born on British soil at Gibraltar, was 
destroyed by a mob of Jew-baiters. As a British citizen 
he put in a claim for damages and asked the foreign office 
to collect it. Palmerston had other scores to settle with 
Greece, and when his demands met with slow response, 
he sent a British fleet to the Piraeus to lay hands on Greek 
shipping. Greece appealed to France and Russia for pro- 
tection. The trouble grew to such proportions that the 
British Parliament took it up. The Lords censured the 
government for its harsh and unjust treatment of a friendly 
state. In the Commons a vote of confidence in the for-^ 
eign policy was moved, and on this question Lord Palmer- 
ston delivered the greatest speech of his life. It was an 
exposition and defense of his entire official career, and no 
argument could break the force with Englishmen of the 
triumphant sentence in which it culminated. **I fearlessly 
challenge the verdict which this House, as representing a 



Lord Palmerston and Foreign Relations 141 

political, a commercial, a constitutional country, is to give 
on the question before it; whether the principles on which 
the foreign policy of this country has been conducted, and 
the sense of duty which has led us to think ourselves 
bound to afford protection to our fellow-subjects abroad, 
are proper and fitting guides for those who are charged 
with the government of England, and whether as the 
Roman in the days of old held himself free from indignity 
when he could say ' Civis Romanus sum, ' so also a British 
subject, in whatever land he be, shall feel confident that the 
watchful eye and the strong arm of England shall protect 
him against injustice and wrong!" 

^ This "Civis Romanus" speech raised the orator to the 
highest pitch of popular regard. But the premier had 
found him a very troublesome colleague on account of his 
confirmed practice of committing the government on impor- 
tant matters without consulting with his chief. He was 
warned by the Queen's personal memorandum that this 
habit must cease, but an unpardonable case occurred in 
185 1. Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, president of 
the French republic, executed his cotcp d' eiat and over- 
threw the constitutional government. Without consulting 
Queen or Premier, and contrary to their express desire, 
Palmerston, in conversation with the French ambassador, 
approved the bold stroke of the Prince-President. For 
this indiscretion Lord Russell summarily dismissed him. 

When Lord Palmerston again took a portfolio, it was 
to be Home Secretary in the coalition cabinet of Lord 
Aberdeen (1852-55). He had become the warm friend 
and admirer of Lord Shaftesbury, whose mother-in-law, 
Lady Cowper, was now Lady Palmerston, the most gra- 
cious and skilful helpmeet that any statesman could wish to 



142 Ten Englishmen 

have. His inclination and his position enabled him to put 
through much legislation suggested by the philanthropic 
peer for the welfare of the working-classes. His knowl- 
edge of foreign affairs was at the service of the govern- 
ment, and came into active play when the Czar's claim to 
a protectorate over all Greek Christians in the Turkish 
empire brought the Eastern Question again to a fever 
heat, in 1853. 

V The Czar Nicholas had said in a conversation with 
the British Minister concerning the political weakness of 
Turkey, ''We have on our hands a sick man — a very sick 
man; it will be a great mistake if one of these days he 
should slip away from us before the necessary arrange- 
ments have been made." His idea of ** arrangements" 
was that Turkey in Europe should fall under Russian pro- 
tection, leaving England free to control her direct route 
to India by way of Cyprus and Egypt. English diplo- 
macy encouraged the Sultan to reject the Russian claim 
to the uttermost. The result was war. Turkey first 
declared it against the Russians, who had already invaded 
her Danubian principalities. Palmerston held that it was 
the duty of Europe to preserve the balance of power by 
preventing Russia from aggrandizing herself at the expense 
of Turkey, and when the Czar refused to withdraw from 
the principalities England joined with France in declaring 
the war, which, from the scene of its chief operations 
against Russia, has since been called the Crimean. Forty 
years had passed since Waterloo and war was an exciting 
novelty for British youth. England plunged into it with 
enthusiasm, but the feeble and incompetent prosecution 
of the campaign against Sebastopol, with the mismanage- 
ment of commissary and hospitals, evoked a storm of 



Lord Palmerston and Foreign Relations 143 

opposition, before which the Aberdeen ministry collapsed. 
Lord Palmerston was the natural choice of Queen and 
nation to succeed him. He became Prime Minister in 
February, 1855, and though past his seventieth year, his 
energy put a new face on the military situation, and his 
diplomacy gained a substantial advantage over Russia in 
the Treaty of Paris (March, 1856), which closed the 
inglorious conflict, and postponed for twenty years her 
advance toward the Bosphorus. The Queen, who had 
many reasons to dislike the personality of her chief minis- 
ter, honored him with the Garter, in recognition of his ser- 
vices to the state. 

Palmerston's government held together until early in 
1858, handling with vigor the various problems of East- 
ern policy which grew out of the Crimean War, waging 
the brief expeditionary wars with China and Persia, and 
dealing with characteristic decision and pluck with the 
great Sepoy Mutiny in India, in 1857. To Palmerston 
belongs the credit of selecting the right person in Sir 
Colin Campbell to restore the British power in the revolted 
provinces, and his ready optimism helped to nerve the 
nation in this year of trial. John Bull felt a new pride in 
"Old Pam" when, in his Mansion House speech, in this 
time of national foreboding, he served notice on any for- 
eign nation whom it might concern that **it would not be 
a safe game to play to take advantage of that which is 
erroneously imagined to be the moment of our weakness." 

Palmerston's willingness to alter the English con- 
spiracy laws for the sake of the Emperor of the French, 
whose life had been attempted by the assassin Orsini, 
cost him his official head in February, 1858. The 
second Derby administration which ensued lasted but 



144 Ten Englishmen 

fifteen months, giving way, in June of the following year, 
to Palmerston's second and last government, with a bril- 
liant array of advisers ; Earl Russell as Foreign Secretary, 
and Mr. William Ewart Gladstone as Chancellor of the 
Exchequer. The lifelong determination to spare nothing 
which might be required for the defense of his country 
was still strong within him, as is shown by his strenuous 
advocacy of increased armaments, better coast defenses, 
and more and more powerful ships. **He never ceased 
for a single moment to keep before the nation the great 
lesson that empires are kept as they are gained, by cour- 
age and self-reliance." 

^ The Civil War in America afforded one of the latest 
opportunities for the display of his characteristics in deal- 
ing with foreign affairs. The sentiment of the ruling 
class in England, the class to which Lord Palmerston 
was allied by birth, interest, and lifelong pohtical associa- 
tion, openly showed its sympathy with the Southern side. 
Moreover, the English cotton-mills were shut down for 
lack of the raw staple, and English merchants looked 
longingly at the blockaded markets of the Confederacy. 
The Prime Minister, true to his guiding principle, made 
*'the interests of England" the watchword of his policy. 
He was prompt to recognize the '^belligerent rights" of 
the revolted states against an angry protest from the 
Union side; he was strenuous in his demand for apology 
and restitution in the case of the Confederate envoys 
whom Captain Wilkes, U. S. N., seized on board the 
British steamer * 'Trent"; and he taxed the endurance of 
Mr. Lincoln's government to the uttermost by allowing the 
''Alabama" and other Confederate commerce-destroyers 
to be built and outfitted in British ports. Not even the 



Lord Palmerston and Foreign Relations 145 

heavy bill of damages which his country had to pay at 
Geneva for this breach of neutrality has softened the 
bitterness of feeling which his action at that time engen- 
dered in the United States. If Lord Palmerston was 
the embodiment of "John Bull," he here exhibited the 
national character at its worst. 

The "evergreen" premier, vigorous almost to the last, 
died at Brocket in October, 1865. He had outlived many 
of the traits which had laid him open to attack and criti- 
cism in his younger days, and had gained in weight and 
dignity. The knowledge of what he had done for Eng- 
land, how he had stood for her interests in the Commons, 
and won victories for her in foreign courts, and had pene- 
trated and frustrated the designs of her enemies, gave him 
a splendid position in the esteem of English patriots. 
They even looked kindly upon his foibles, his foppish attire, 
his fondness for the turf, and his frivolous gayety, which 
shone undaunted when the national gloom was blackest. 
When he died there was a general belief that England had 
lost a son who had spared nothing in laboring for her 
aggrandizement, and he went to his last resting-place in 
Westminster Abbey as one who had earned a place among 
her most useful servants. 

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 

1. Describe the early career of Palmerston. 

2. How was he especially qualified for the position of Sec- 
retary of Foreign Affairs ? 

3. What was the chief principle of his foreign policy ? 

4. How was the independence of Belgium brought about ? 

5. What was the work of the Quadruple Alliance ? 

6. How did Palmerston deal with the Egyptian revolt and 
why ? 



146 Ten Englishmen 

7. What was England's attitude toward the " Spanish Mar- 
riage " ? 

8. Describe the " Civis Romanus " speech and the reasons 
for it. 

9. Why was Lord Palmerston dismissed from the Cabinet ? 

10. What conditions brought on the Crimean War and what 
was England's share in it ? 

11. What was Palmerston's attitude in the American Civil 
War? 

12. How did England regard the premier in the last years 
of his life ? 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Life of Viscount Palmerston. Lord Dolling and Bulwer. 

Viscount Palmerston. L. C. Sanders. 

Henry Havelock. (English Men of Action Series.) 

The Indian Mutiny. G. B. Malleson. 

The War in the Crimea. Gen. Sir Edward Hamley. 



X 

GLADSTONE AND THE IRISH QUESTION 

[William Ewart Gladstone, born, Liverpool, December 29, 
1809; died, Hawarden,* Flintshire, Wales, May 19, 1898; 
educated at Eton and Christ Church College, Oxford Univer- 
sity (double first-class, 1831); Member of Parliament for 
Newark as a Tory, 1832 46; wrote, 1838, "The State in its 
Relations with the Church"; held minor financial offices in 
Peel administration; 1843-45, President of Board of Trade; 
1847-65, Member of Parliament for Oxford University; 1852, 
Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord Aberdeen; 1858, 
Commissioner to the Ionian Islands; 1859, Chancellor of the 
Exchequer under Lord Palmerston; 1865, defeated as can- 
didate for Oxford but returned for South Lancashire as a 
Liberal; leader of House of Commons; proposes radical 
Reform Bill; 1868, Member of Parliament for Greenwich; 
1868-74, Premier (I.); Disestablishes Irish Church; carries 
National Educational Law, Ballot Law, Irish Land Act; 
abolishes purchase in the army; resigns Liberal leadership 
in 1875, and publishes works on ecclesiastical controversy; 
1876, attacks Disraeli"'s Eastern policy in letters on Bulgarian 
atrocities; 1880, Member of Parliament for Midlothian; 
1880-85, Premier (II.); Irish Coercion Acts; new Land Acts; 
Arrears of Rent Act; Franchise and Redistribution Acts; 
1886, Premier (III.); First Home Rule Bill Fails; 1892-94, 
Premier (IV.) ; 1893, Second Home Rule Bill carried through 
the Commons, thrown out by the Lords; retires from public 
life March, 1894; buried in Westminster Abbey.] 

From the first day of the nineteenth century to the last 
the statesmen of England have had one standing problem 
to face. It might come up under various forms and dis- 

147 



148 Ten Englishmen 

guises, and it might seem to demand various remedies, 
but in some shape or other the woes of Ireland have 
always furnished the test of practical statesmanship, and 
have often been the rock on which proud administrations 
have met with disaster. 

By nature Ireland would seem formed for peace and 
plenty. Happily located with the protecting bulwark of 
Great Britain between their emerald isle and foreign foes, 
blessed with a mild and equable climate, and inhabiting an 
island of singular fertility, the Irish would seem to have 
been marked for fortune's favors. Yet such has been 
the misgovernment of the English that the Irish have seen 
their paternal acres pass into the hands of aliens and 
absentees, their religion made a brand of shame and out- 
lawry, their Parliament corrupted and done away, their 
industries crippled and bound down, and themselves 
reduced to wretched poverty. 

At the outset of the century the Act of Union went into 
effect, abolishing the Irish Parliament and admitting Irish 
(Protestant) Lords and Commons to the Parliament at 
Westminster. Pitt believed that the change would 
strengthen the empire and help Ireland as well, but it was 
brought to pass by means of lavish bribery, and sorely 
against the wish of the Irish patriots. Furthermore, the 
determination of Pitt to commend the act to Ireland by 
removing the political disabilities which barred Catholics 
from membership in Parliament was thwarted by the stiff- 
necked George III., who had got it into his head that such 
a concession would do violence to the Protestantism of 
his coronation oath. Pitt resigned in disgust, and Catho- 
lic emancipation had to await until England had finished 
Napoleon's European business and could turn her hand 



Gladstone and the Irish Question 149 

to the troubles nearer home. It was finally carried, in 
1829, by Wellington and Peel, the reform being fairly 
forced upon them by the tremendous agitation in its 
behalf by the eloquent Daniel O'Connell and his comrades 
of the Catholic Association. To save the nation from 
civil war the government yielded with scant grace, and 
O'Connell and his "tail" of Irish Catholics came into 
Parliament to form a new and perplexing element in all 
subsequent political calculations. 

From his vantage-ground as a member of Parliament 
O'Connell led a fresh agitation for the ''Repeal, " mean- 
ing the repeal of the Act of Union which had destroyed the 
Dublin Parliament. His oratory, which in its power over 
vast multitudes of his emotional countrymen has never 
been surpassed, made him the idol of his party. To 
boisterous congregations of tens of thousands he declaimed 
his bitter harangues on Saxon injustice to the Celt. But 
when the people had been brought to fever heat the agita- 
tion failed because the orator proved to be a voice and 
nothing more. He yielded meekly to the proclamation of 
the government forbidding further meetings, and his fol- 
lowers forsook him when they saw that he would not 
cross the Rubicon and take arms after words had failed. 
The society called ** Young Ireland," formed about 1840, 
took up the agitation for Irish nationality, and carried it to 
greater lengths than O'Connell had dared. Its fiery 
young leaders, Smith O'Brien, Meagher, and Mitchel, 
preached sedition with voice and newspaper press, and in 
1848, only by the vigorous exertion of physical force was 
open rebellion averted. The principal men of the Young 
Ireland party were seized and condemned to death for 
high treason, though they ultimately got off with trans- 



i^o Ten Englishmen 

portation to Australia, whence most of them eventually 
found their way to America, whither thousands of their 
countrymen had emigrated since the famine year of 1846. 
The famine marks a turning-point in the history of the 
relations of England and Ireland. As has been narrated 
in another place, it was the dearth of food in Ireland 
which forced the government of Sir Robert Peel to do 
what the Cobdenites had been demanding for ten years, 
and repeal the Corn Laws. Probably the distressful 
plight of the Irish peasant had never been brought so 
strongly to the attention of Enghshmen as by the reports 
which now reached England from the agents of the relief 
committees who visited every part of the island ascertain- 
ing conditions and distributing food. From this time a 
considerable number among the English Liberals carried 
the sad state of Ireland upon their heart and conscience. 
Another result of the famine which was to exercise endur- 
ing influence upon Irish politics was the emigration to 
America. The hundreds of thousands who came to the 
free republic at this time soon made it the asylum of Irish 
patriots, the hot-bed of anti-English conspiracies, and 
the source of a swelling stream of revenue for the Irish 
nationalist treasury. 

It was in America that the next alarm was sounded 
after two unquiet decades. A widely ramified secret 
society, the Fenian Brotherhood, sprang up among the 
Irish exiles and emigrants in the United States about 
1857, its members swearing ''to free and regenerate Ire- 
land from the yoke of England." The movement spread 
to Ireland, and Fenian lodges were organized even on 
British soil. The close of the American Civil War set 
loose many Irish veterans who eagerly enlisted in the 



Gladstone and the Irish Question ici 

cause of "the Irish Republic." The reports of vast 
enhstments and contributions in America alarmed the 
British government. In February, 1866, the Habeas 
Corpus Act was suspended in Ireland, and scores of sus- 
pects were thrown into jail. In May an armed band of 
Irish-American Fenians crossed the Niagara River to 
invade Canada. The attempt failed miserably, as did the 
plans for a general rising in Ireland. But a succession 
of surprises, jail deliveries, gunpowder plots, and the like, 
kept the English government in a flutter for several 
years, and gave the name of Fenian a place in the somber 
side of the century's history. The most notable result of 
the Fenian outbreak, beyond its obvious one of embitter- 
ing the feeling between the governing nation and the 
subject race, was that it aroused one man — and he the 
greatest statesman of his time — to the need of providing 
some far-reaching and sufficient remedy for the disease 
which showed such virulence. **We know," says 
McCarthy, the historian of the epoch, "that even the 
worst excesses of the movement impressed the mind of 
Mr. Gladstone with a conviction that the hour was appro- 
priate for doing something to remove the causes of the 

discontent that made Ireland restless While many 

public instructors lost themselves in vain shriekings over 
the wickedness of Fenianism, and the incurable perversity 
of the Irish people, one statesman was already convinced 
that the very shock of the Fenian agitation would arouse 
public attention to the recognition of substantial grievance, 
and to the admission that the business of statesmanship 
was to seek out the remedy and provide redress." 

The statesman who accomplished the disestablishment 
of the Irish Church, reformed the Land Laws, and devoted 



152 Ten Englishmen 

the closing decade of a great career to a fruitless endeavor 
to secure to Ireland the benefits of self-government, cer- 
tainly ranks among the century's foremost Englishmen. 
In length of parliamentary service, in the frequency and 
duration of his terms as premier, in administrative abil- 
ity, in moral force, and moving eloquence, it would be 
difficult to find in the long history of English statesman- 
ship a name which shines with a purer ray than that of 
William Ewart Gladstone. 

The family name was anciently Gledstane, and the 
ancestry on both sides of the house was purely Scotch. 
Sir John Gladstone made his own way in life, amassed 
a fortune as a corn merchant in Liverpool, and became 
a member of Parliament and a follower of Peel. His 
gentle and pious wife admirably supplemented his master- 
ful nature, and the sons of the household were brought up 
in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. At the age 
of eleven the third son, William Ewart Gladstone, was 
sent away to Eton, where his two brothers were already 
at school. Here his piety and studious habits militated 
against his popularity, but here his intellectual ambition 
was aroused and his soul was enriched by the closest 
intimacy with Arthur Hallam, whom Tennyson's "In 
Memoriam" has eulogized. Like Canning he was a pre- 
cocious orator, and edited the school paper with an ability 
which led some of his contemporaries to predict a great 
future for him. "I am confident," said Arthur Hallam, 
**that he is a bud that will bloom with a richer fragrance 
than almost any whose early promise I have witnessed." 
At Christ Church, Oxford, he justified the hopes of his 
friends — a quiet, abstemious, reading man, mighty in 
debate, learned and devout in theology, and a tower of 



Gladstone and the Irish Question 1 53 

strength in examinations. He graduated with a double 
first class (classics and mathematics) in 1831, as Robert 
Peel had done a generation earlier. His choice of a 
career would have taken him into the clergy of the Church 
of England, but his father saw in him the making of a 
parliamentary leader, and to the House of Commons he 
was accordingly returned in 1833, entering the first 
Reformed Parliament as a Tory. 

Sir Robert Peel was then engaged in rallying the shat- 
tered forces of Toryism under the new name of Con- 
servatives, and building up a working opposition. He 
welcomed the eloquent young Oxonian, and when he 
became Prime Minister in December, 1834, he gave 
William Gladstone one of the minor offices in his short- 
lived government. In the spring of 1835 he was again a 
private member of the House, free to devote himself to 
the religious and literary pursuits which appealed so 
strongly to him. In 1838, when the Tractarian move- 
ment was at its height, Gladstone wrote his book on **The 
State in its Relations with the Church." Reviewing the 
work Macaulay described the author as "the rising hope 
of the stern and unbending Tories," words often quoted 
in later years, when his political bedfellows were of quite 
another sort. The book increased the author's reputa- 
tion. In 1839 he was married to Miss Catharine Glynne 
of Hawarden Castle, Flintshire. In 1 840 his second 
important book, a vindication of High Church principles, 
came from the press. The next year his leader. Peel, 
came back to power, giving Gladstone, of course, a post 
in the government (vice-president of the Board of Trade). 
Gladstone was then a protectionist like his party chief. 
He bore a hand in the preparation of the tariff legislation 



1^4 Ten Englishmen 

of that epoch-making administration, and though tempo- 
rarily not a member of the House of Commons when the 
bill for the repeal of the Corn Laws was carried, in* 1846, 
he helped to frame it, and to secure its passage. He had 
been fully converted to the principles of free trade as 
preached by Richard Cobden and the Manchester school, 
and remained true to that principle to the last. 

Going out of office, in 1846, with the fall of the Peel 
ministry, Mr. Gladstone continued to occupy a prominent 
place in Parliament, acting with the group of Peelites, so 
called, who kept alive the name and principles of the lost 
leader. Though still accounted as of the Tory party, 
Mr. Gladstone's alert and open mind led him to make 
fresh and independent studies of current political ques- 
tions and to decide them according to his own enlightened 
judgment. The result was to weaken by degrees the ties 
which bound him to the Tories and to knit more closely 
the bonds which were to unite his fortunes with the Liber- 
als. In 1852, the Peelites having joined the Liberal 
coalition to overthrow the Derby-Disraeli ministry, Mr. 
Gladstone's services were rewarded with the Chancellor- 
ship of the Exchequer, in which office he delivered the 
first of the many budget speeches for which he was so 
celebrated. From 1855 to 1859 he was again out of 
office, and without party affiliations, "a roving iceberg," 
to use his own description. The latter year found him 
again at the head of the Exchequer, this time in the 
Liberal Cabinet of Lord Palmerston, where he served 
with distinction, becoming, in 1865, the leader of the 
House of Commons, when the death of Palmerston raised 
his colleague, Lord John Russell, to the premiership. 
With his chief — one of the heroes of the first successful 



Gladstone and the Irish Question 155 

struggle for parliamentary reform — he now drew up the 
Reform Bill of 1866 vihich was intended so to modify the 
qualifications for the franchise as to admit four hundred 
thousand new voters to the electorate. Though the gov- 
ernment was defeated and went out of office on the ques- 
tion, the principle scored a singular victory, for in the 
following year Disraeli, bidding high for democratic sup- 
port, carried by Tory votes an even more liberal measure 
of reform. By this bill, which some one called his "leap 
in the dark," Disraeli boasted that he had * 'dished the 
Whigs." The taunt was thrown at him which he had 
cast at Peel ''that he had caught his opponents bathing 
and run off with their clothes." Rumor imputed to him 
the boast that by this move he had got the best of Glad- 
stone and "would hold him down for twenty years," yet, 
within a twelvemonth, Gladstone had attacked and 
defeated the government in the Commons, and before the 
end of the next year was himself Prime Minister, backed 
by a powerful majority of the Reformed Parliament. 

It was an Irish question which caused the overthrow 
of the Conservatives and swept the Liberals into their 
seats, and though this Gladstonian administration 
(1868-74) audits successors (1880-85, 1886, 1892-94) 
were rich in progressive measures, they are pre-eminent 
for what they did and attempted to do for Ireland. The 
three grievances of Ireland since the granting of Catholic 
emancipation have related to the Established Church, 
the tenure of land, and self-government. Mr. Gladstone 
took. them up in succession, removing the first, ameliorat- 
ing the second, and giving his closing years to a tremen- 
dous parliamentary struggle to secure the third. 

The Church of Ireland, as established by law and main- 



156 Ten Englishmen 

tained by taxation, was an absurdity. Its doctrines were 
offensive to five-sixths of the Irish people, whose volun- 
tary offerings went to support the Roman Catholic priests, 
while the absentee Anglican Protestant rectors lived luxu- 
riously in England or the Continent upon the revenues of 
their Irish parishes. The situation was anomalous. In 
1867 Mr. Gladstone, ardent Anglican though he was, 
espoused the cause of Irish disestablishment, and went to 
the country on the issue, winning the parliamentary elec- 
tions by a splendid majority. There was loud outcry 
from the British Tories, who professed to fear for the 
existence of the Church of England itself. The majority 
of the English clergy denounced the proposition, and 
some even declared its author a madman; but Mr. Glad- 
stone pursued his chosen way with energy and directness. 
In one of those elevated speeches with which he was 
accustomed to ennoble debate, he laid the details of his 
plan open to the Commons. The Irish Church was to be 
disestablished and disendowed, its bishops were to lose 
their seats in Parliament, and it was to become a free and 
independent ecclesiastical body, like the Presbyterian, 
Wesleyan, or Catholic churches, without further aid from 
the state. **I trust," said the impassioned advocate, 
"that when instead of the fictitious and adventitious aid 
on which we have too long taught the Irish establishment 
to lean, it shall come to place its trust in its own 
resources, in its own great mission, in all that it can draw 
from the energy of its ministers and its members, and the 
high hopes and promises of the Gospel that it teaches, it 
will find that it has entered upon a new era of existence — 
an era bright with hope and potent for good." The 
Lords did not seriously oppose a measure for which the 



Gladstone and the Irish Question 157 

country had spoken so distinctly, and the bill became a 
law, July 26, 1869. One standing grievance of Ireland 
had thus received radical remedy. 

In 1870 Mr. Gladstone laid the ax at the root of 
another tree whose fruit had cursed the Irish peasantry. 
This was the system of land tenure which prevailed in the 
southern and western counties. In the province of Ulster, 
in the north of Ireland, the tenantry were of another sort, 
and there were other means of livelihood than agriculture. 
Out of this condition had sprung the so-called ** Ulster 
tenant-right," the vital principle of which was that a 
tenant could not be evicted so long as he paid his rent, 
and ** could sell the good will of his farm for what it would 
fetch in the market. ' ' This tenant-right was what Palmer- 
ston dismissed with the scornful remark that it was another 
name for "landlord's wrong." It did not exist elsewhere 
in Ireland, where a landlord might raise the rent and 
throw a tenant into the street at will. The Land Act, 
which Gladstone carried in 1870, gave legal force to the 
old Ulster custom and applied it to the whole island. Pro- 
vision was made by which the tenant whose improvements 
had increased the value of his holding might receive 
compensation. The Irish landlords and the same class in 
England made a clamorous protest against such "state 
interference with freedom of contract," but without avail. 
Of what the Land Act of 1870 accomplished, Mr. Justin 
McCarthy is a competent judge. He says: "It was a 
first and an experimental measure, and no first and experi- 
mental measure ever does quite succeed in its object. It 
has had to be amended and expanded over and over 

again But it introduced a new principle, which 

no one since has ever attempted to abolish. That new 



158 Ten Englishmen 

principle was that the Irish tenant was entitled to some 
share and property in the improvements which he himself 
had made in his farm. It was, therefore, in the best 
sense of the word, a revolutionary measure. It created 
a new principle, and that principle has since been settled. 
It did not go nearly far enough in the right direction, but 
it showed the direction in which legislation ought to go, 
and it was on that account the opening of a new era for 
Ireland." 

The same wave of reforming zeal which brought these 
blessings to Ireland gave the English nation its first sys- 
tem of free schools (1870), abohshed the purchase of 
commissions in the army (1871), agreed to the principle 
of arbitrations in international disputes (the Geneva award 
on the "Alabama Claims" 1872), and introduced the vote 
by ballot (1872). The effort to establish university edu- 
cation in Ireland upon a basis broad enough to afford 
equal opportunities for Roman Catholic and Protestant 
youth was defeated (1873). A few months later, when 
the national election had pronounced against the liberal 
policy, Mr. Gladstone yielded his place to his rival, 
Disraeli. 

In the spring of 1874 Mr. Gladstone formally resigned 
the leadership of his party, then in opposition, and with- 
drew to a considerable degree from active participation in 
parliamentary affairs, devoting himself with his accus- 
tomed zeal to his studies, which at that time were con- 
cerned with ecclesiastical subjects. From his retirement 
he emerged, in 1876, to write that trenchant series of 
letters on the "Bulgarian Atrocities," which so stirred 
the indignation of the English people that Disraeli was 
unable to carry them into an armed alliance with the red- 



Gladstone and the Irish Question 159 

handed Turk against the Russians. His fierce and 
persistent onslaughts upon the foreign pohcy of the gov- 
ernment at length carried the nation with him and drove 
Disraeli (now Lord Beaconsfield) from power. 

No one but Mr. Gladstone could be thought of to head 
the ministry, and in 1 880, he came in for his second term 
as Prime Minister. The state of Ireland again concerned 
him deeply. He carried an improved Land Act, but the 
Lords threw out his bill to relieve the special difficulties 
which the famine of 1880 had brought upon the Irish 
tenantry, and the exasperated tenantry resorted to repris- 
als upon the persons and property of the landlords. The 
Irish Land League, under the direction of Charles Stew- 
art Parnell, resisted the operation of the new Land Act 
until its worth should have been tested. Mr. Gladstone 
and the Irish leaders worked at cross purposes, and thor- 
oughly distrusted one another. The government found 
it necessary to exert force in order to suppress the agrarian 
disorders. Mr. Parnell and his associates were thrown 
into jail, and the Land League was proclaimed as an 
unlawful association. Parnell, whose word was law with 
the Leaguers, retaliated by forbidding the tenantry to pay 
rent. In the spring of 1 882, when better feeling was 
beginning to prevail, some Irish conspirators (Invin- 
cibles) assassinated Lord Frederick Cavendish and his 
secretary in Phoenix Park, Dublin. Cavendish was the 
newly appointed secretary for Ireland, and appears to have 
been mistaken for W. E. Forster, his predecessor, who 
was held responsible for the rigorous measures of the 
past winter. The National League was formed to take 
the place of the proscribed Land League, and Irish dis- 
tress and crime continued with little abatement. The 



i6o Ten Englishmen 

^'boycott" was applied in its most oppressive form, rents 
remained unpaid, and evictions were frequent and dis- 
tressing. 

Cabinet dissensions over Irish measures and general 
criticism of the foreign policy which had made a generous 
peace with the Boers of South Africa, and was accused 
of abandoning General Gordon to his fate at Khartoum, 
weakened its hold upon the people and their representa- 
tives. The Irish members held the balance of power in 
the Commons, and when, in the spring of 1885, they 
joined forces with the Conservatives, the Liberals were 
again unseated. 

Lord Salisbury and Lord Randolph Churchill, the 
Conservative leaders who came into power in 1885, 
enjoyed a brief and troubled tenure of office. The 
general election of 1885 was the first to be held under the 
Reform Law of the previous year, which had given to 
Ireland the same freedom of electoral franchise which had 
existed in the English and Scottish boroughs since 1869. 
The result was a great increase in the number of Nation- 
alist members in Parliament. Of the one hundred and 
three members for Ireland no less than eighty-four were 
returned as Home Rulers, a compact and formidable body 
acting as a unit under the leadership of Mr. Parnell. 

The first leader of the little company of Irish Home 
Rulers that had appeared in Parliament in the early '70's 
was Isaac Butt. His repeated attempts to have the sub- 
ject considered were as often rejected with derision. In 
his own party he was opposed by an element which 
desired to resort to aggressive measures to compel the 
English to heed Ireland's demand for local self-govern- 
ment. Prominent in this radical wing was a young 



Gladstone and the Irish Question i6i 

Protestant, Charles Stewart Parnell, the grandson of 
Commodore Stewart of the United States Navy. In 
1880 'he was recognized as the chairman of the Irish 
Home Rulers in Parliament. For many years he con- 
tinued to exercise a control over this party and over the 
Irish people such as no one, save perhaps O'Connell him- 
self, had ever attained. He conceived and enforced the 
obstructive policy which so embarrassed the second Glad- 
stone administration. By exasperating tactics, which we 
Americans call "filibustering," the obstructionists, unable 
to secure what they wanted for Ireland, succeeded in 
paralyzing the law-making branch of the British constitu- 
tion. It was only by adopting new and arbitrary rules 
for choking off debate that any legislation could be passed 
in the stormy decade beginning with 1881. Arrests, sus- 
pensions, and expulsions of Irish members repeatedly 
disturbed the dignity of the House of Commons, and 
kept ever present before the English representatives the 
temper of the subject kingdom. 

A statesman as earnest as Mr. Gladstone, as little 
bound by precedent, and as surely impelled in his later 
years by a purpose to enact into law the wishes of the 
people, could not but be profoundly impressed by the 
unanimity with which, in 1 88 5, the Irish used their new 
gift of the ballot to send men to Parliament who were 
pledged to work for Home Rule. It was no sudden con- 
version but the result of a long consideration which led 
to his open profession, in 1885, of his determination to 
crown his efforts for the relief of the Irish nation by giv- 
ing them the separate legislative body for which they had 
asked with such persistent clamor. It is possible, in 
reviewing his statements for a dozen years previous, in 



i62 Ten Englishmen 

the light of the final declaration, that his mind had been 
dwelling on the subject as his old political mentor, Peel, 
dwelt upon the question of free trade in the years l3efore 
he renounced protectionism utterly. 

No sooner did Gladstone come into office, in 1886, 
than he concentrated his energies upon his Home Rule 
project. His chief lieutenant, John Morley, the English 
Radical, was sent to Ireland as chief secretary. In April, 
in one of the greatest speeches of a career remark- 
able for its eloquence, Mr. Gladstone introduced to the 
House of Commons his first Home Rule Bill, "An act to 
make better provision for the government of Ireland." 
It proposed to establish at Dublin a Parliament of Peers 
and Commons, under a lord-lieutenant appointed by the 
crown, and an independent privy council. The Irish 
Parliament was to have control of local finances except 
customs duties, and it was excluded from interference 
with army and navy, foreign or colonial affairs, or with 
religious endowments. An essential provision was that 
after the establishment of the Dublin Parliament Ireland 
should no longer be represented in the ''imperial" Parlia- 
ment at Westminster. A week later a * 'purchase of 
land" bill was introduced by the Prime Minister to pro- 
vide funds for buying out the Irish landlords and distribut- 
ing their holdings among the tenants. The Home Rule 
Bill split the Liberal party in twain. Lord Hartington, 
the Whig, Joseph Chamberlain, the Radical, and John 
Bright, the hero of the non-conformists, broke away from 
their old leader and helped to organize the "Liberal 
Unionist" party, rallying those Liberals who remained 
true to the Act of Legislative Union of the three king- 
doms. Ninety-three rallied under this banner on April 



Gladstone and the Irish Question 163 

14th, when the bill was killed on its second reading by a 
vote of 343 to 313. The nation was appealed to in vain. 
In July the Gladstonian government gave up the fight 
against the Consei-vative and Liberal-Unionist coalition 
and Lord Salisbury resumed the premiership. 

For Ireland a new era began, characterized by agrarian 
crime, anti-rent agitation under the "Plan of Campaign," 
and Parnellite obstruction at Westminster. 

In 1893 the "Grand Old Man," now Prime Minister 
for the fourth time, and in his eighty-fourth year, made a 
final endeavor to bring order into Ireland, by enabling her 
to regulate her own affairs. The Home Rule Bill of 1893 
differed from the earlier measure chiefly in respect to the 
Irish representation at Westminster. Ireland, in addition 
to her local Parliament at Dublin, was granted eighty seats 
in the "imperial" House of Commons, though the Irish 
members might not vote on exclusively British measures. 
"This was to get over two objections: The first was the 
objection of those who complained of Ireland's being 
taxed by the imperial Parliament without representation. 
The second was the objection of those who complained 
that whereas English members could not interfere in the 
affairs of Ireland, Irish members might come over to the 
imperial Parliament and interfere in the affairs of Eng- 
land." The Old Man Eloquent, now backed by an over- 
whelming majority, carried the bill triumphantly through 
the Lower House only to meet defeat by a majority of ten 
to one in the Lords, the stronghold of Conservatism, 
where every progressive measure of reform has to en- 
counter resistance at the outset. Though the Lords have 
learned to yield when the nation reiterates its determined 
demand for a law, they were spared on this occasion. 



164 Ten Englishmen 

Mr. Gladstone did not renew the bill. In March, 1894, 
he withdrew forever from public life, which he had adorned 
so long and so conspicuously, his last words in Parlia- 
ment taking the form of an impressive warning against 
the assertion of authority by the Upper House. In his 
last interview with the leader of the Irish Home Rulers 
he assured them of his beHef in the ultimate triumph of 
their cause — a cause whose success was mentioned in his 
prayers. 

The Queen offered her aged public servant an earldom 
on his retirement, but his was not an ambition to be 
pleased with such empty rewards. In his beautiful castle 
of Hawarden, surrounded by his books and his family, he 
spent the years which remained to him in a graceful old 
age. To the last his mind remained alert and active. He 
busied himself with the classical and theological studies 
which had been the delight of his young manhood, and 
the relaxation of his active years. His translations, his 
controversial pamphlets, his letters on public questions, 
showed the refinement and vigor of his remarkable intel- 
lect. When he died the English-speaking world paid a 
universal tribute of respect to his memory. 

In linking these biographies with certain public ques- 
tions or events, the name of Gladstone has been connected 
with the cause of Ireland — a "lost cause," as some may 
say, because Home Rule, which was to have been the 
capstone of his edifice, was rejected by the builders. But 
it must not be forgotten that it was Gladstone who swept 
away the burdensome Irish Church and improved the land 
laws, the franchise, and the opportunities of education in 
Ireland, and made an English statesman's name beloved 
in the Emerald Isle for the first time since Charles James 



Gladstone and the Irish Question 165 

Fox. Nor should his great work for Ireland obscure the 
grand achievements of the earlier years when he led the 
Liberal party through its wonderful program of reform in 
England; nor should any prejudice against the friend of 
Ireland dull our perception to the clear voice which so 
often pleaded the cause of ignorance and oppression at 
home and abroad, and touched the best that was in the 
conscience of his countrymen. A good, great, learned, 
eloquent statesman, William Ewart Gladstone towers in 
moral grandeur above his fellows like a mountain peak 
above the foothills, and the far-surrounding plain. 



QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 

1. Why has Ireland menaced the peace of England for 
more than a century ? 

2. What events led up to the organization of the " Young 
Ireland " Society ? 

3. What results had the Irish famine of 1846? 

4. Describe the Fenian agitations. 

5. Give an account of the early career of Gladstone. 

6. What two important books did he write on church 
affairs ? 

7. What view did he take of the Anti-Corn Law bill ? 

8. How did he clash with Disraeli on the reform move- 
ment of 1866 ? 

Q. To what three grievances of Ireland did he devote 
himself ? 

10. Describe the events connected with the disestablish- 
ment of the Irish church. 

11. W^hat did he secure to Ireland by the Land Act of 1870 ? 

12. What other reforms were carried through about the 
same time ? 

13. What did he accomplish by his letters on the " Bulga- 
rian Atrocities ? " 



1 66 Ten Englishmen 

14. What difficulties beset his attempts at reform in Ireland 
in 1880-85 ? 

15. How did the policy of Gladstone's cabinet toward the 
Boers and General Gordon weaken its influence ? 

16. How did the Irish wing of Parliament make itself felt 
under the new Conservative cabinet ? 

17. Describe Gladstone's Home Rule Bill of 1886 and its 
defeat ? 

18. What new attempt at Home Rule was made in 1893, 
and with what result ? 

19. Sum up the chief services of Gladstone to his coun- 
trymen. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Life of W. E. Gladstone. Justin McCarthy. 
Life of Gladstone. G. W. E. Russell. 
William Ewart Gladstone. James Bryce. 
A Diary of the Home Rule Parliament. Henry W. Lucy. 
Young Ireland. C. G, Duffy. 
Daniel G Connell. J. A, Hamilton. 

History of Legislative Union of Great Britain aud Ireland. 
T. D. Ingram. 



XI 

BEACONSFIELD AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

[Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield; born, London, 
December 21, 1804; died, London, April 19, 1881; baptized 
in the Church of England, 1817; privately educated ; studied 
law in a solicitor's office, 1821-24; 1825, published his first 
novel "Vivian Grey"; 1830-31, traveled in Europe and the 
Levant; his novel " Contarini Fleming " attracts notice 1832; 
after defeats becomes Member of Parliament for Maidstone 
1837; marries Mrs. Wyndham Lewis 1839; leads the "Pro- 
tectionist " attack on Peel 1846; leader of opposition 1849- 
52, 1852-58, 1859-66, 1868-74; Chancellor of Exchequer 1852, 
1858-59, 1866-68; Premier 1868, 1874-80.] 

The expansion of the English domain by discovery and 
colonization or by war and conquest has been one of the 
distinguishing features of the nineteenth century. The 
movement may be said to have begun with the planting of 
the North American colonies two hundred years before. 
A century later the victories of Lord Clive and the adminis- 
tration of Warren Hastings, the empire-builder, laid a 
broad foundation for British dominion in India. Before 
the dawn of the nineteenth century the voyages of Cap- 
tain James Cook in the South Pacific had opened new 
doors to Anglo-Saxon expansion in Australia, New Zea- 
land, and the neighboring islands. In 1806 England 
wrested from the Dutch the sovereignty of Cape Colony 
at the southern extremity of Africa, the strategic half-way 
station on the main traveled sea-road to India and the 

167 



1 68 Ten Englishmen 

East. Gibraltar, Malta, and Cyprus in the Mediterranean, 
Aden, Singapore, and Hong Kong in the Far Eastern 
seas were acquired and fortified in order to protect 
British commerce. It could be said with truth that the 
sun never set upon the flag of England, and that the 
morning drum-beat of her garrisons saluted the sun in his 
daily journey around the world. At the close of the 
century the foreign possessions of Great Britain amounted 
in area to ten million square miles, and in population to 
three hundred and fifty million souls. 

The problems which have sprung from this vast colonial 
empire have been among the most serious which English 
statesmen have been compelled to face. The colonies in 
America and Australia were English in blood, language, 
and institutions. In South Africa a large proportion of 
the inhabitants were Dutch ''Boers," transferred with- 
out their consent and against their will to a foreign sov- 
ereignty. In India and Burma the English estabhshed 
their authority and maintained it by force of arms over 
teeming native populations of another race and religion. 
How to hold together an empire so vast and various ; how 
to adapt administrative methods to its novel and changing 
needs; how, if possible, to organize the incongruous 
multitude of dependencies, colonies, and protected states 
into some sort of federal empire — these are among the 
newer problems of British statesmanship. 

Americans know how imperfectly the ministers of 
George III. were prepared to deal with such problems, 
and how their blundering resulted in the independence of 
the United States. The lesson of 1776 has not been for- 
gotten, as the history of England's concihatory policy 
toward Canada and the Australasian commonwealth 



Beaconsfield and the British Empire 169 

abundantly testifies. Lord Tennyson's verses, written in the 
year of the Queen's jubilee, give expression to the altered 
relation of the mother-country toward her colonial offspring : 

"Britain fought her sons of yore, 

Britain failed; and nevermore, 
Careless of our growing kin, 

Shall we sin our fathers' sin; 
Men that in a narrower day — 

Unprophetic rulers they — 
Drove from out the eagle's nest 

That young eagle of the West • 

To forage for herself alone; 

Britons, hold your own ! 

"Sharers of our glorious past, 

Brothers, must w^e part at last? 
Shall we not thro' good and ill 

Cleave to one another still? 
Britain's myriad voices call, 

* Sons be welded each and all 
Into one imperial whole. 

One with Britain, heart, and soul ! 
One life, one fleet, one flag, one throne! 

Britons, hold your own." 

Although as yet no statesman has arisen who has been 
able to frame a plan of federation which should weld all 
into "one imperial whole," the idea is abroad, and has 
occupied many minds. Perhaps the man whose pow- 
erful imagination first grasped the *' imperial" idea and 
began to look upon Greater Britain as having common 
interests, and being capable of assuming common respon- 
sibilities, was Lord Beaconsfield, or Benjamin Disraeli — to 
use the name by which he first came into public notice. 
Death hushed his active mind before he could give form 
and substance to his great concept, and it was left to 



lyo Ten Englishmen 

others trained in his school to propagate the idea, and 
just at the century's close to demonstrate its significance 
and worth. Yet what he did for England through a long- 
life spent in conspicuous public service renders it impos- 
sible to exclude him from any list of Ten Great English- 
men of the nineteenth century. Nor is there in the entire 
group a personality more interesting than that of the 
ambitious, determined, witty, eloquent, and amazingly, 
clever Israelite who raised himself by sheer force of intel- 
lect from an object of ridicule and contempt to the leader- 
ship of the hereditary aristocracy, membership in the 
House of Lords, chief minister of England, friend of the 
sovereign, and arbiter of the destinies of nations.. On 
that January night in 1846, when Sir Robert Peel, as 
Prime Minister, confessed to the House of Commons his 
conversion to the theory of free trade, and his purpose to 
repeal the Corn Laws, he was answered by Benjamin 
Disraeli in a speech which for bitterness of sarcasm, bril- 
liancy of wit, and savagery of denunciation, has seldom 
been equaled in parliamentary history. (See Appendix.) 
He denounced Peel as "a man who never originates an 
idea; a watcher of the atmosphere; a man who takes his 
observations, and when he finds the wind in a particular 

quarter turns his sails to suit it Such a man 

may be a powerful minister, but he is no more a great 
statesman than the man who gets up behind a carriage is 
a great whip!" Such an attack, voicing the feelings of 
the Tory protectionists, and coming from Peel's own side 
of the House, at that critical moment, made the political 
fortune of the speaker. From that hour Benjamin Dis- 
raeli was looked upon as the hope of the remnant of the 
Tory party, which could no longer follow Peel. 



Beaconsfield and the British Empire 171 

Disraeli was in his tenth year of membership in the 
House of Commons. He was a descendant of a hne of 
Spanish and Venetian Jews who had sought refuge in 
England and prospered there. His father, Isaac Disraeli, 
had broken with the family traditions, devoting himself to 
literature instead of getting gain, and had renounced the 
faith of his fathers. The son, Benjamin, was baptized 
into the Church of England at the age of thirteen, edu- 
cated among his father's books and in private schools, and 
at seventeen articled to a firm of London solicitors. 
Instead of practicing law the young clerk practiced author- 
ship so cleverly as to make a sensation in his twenty-first 
year with a novel "Vivian Grey" (1826), the first of 
eleven ("Young Duke," 1831; "Contarini Fleming," 
1832; "Alroy," 1833; "Henrietta Temple," 1836; 
"Venetia," 1837; "Coningsby," 1844; "Sybil," 1845; 
"Tancred," 1847; ''Lothair," 1870; "Endymion," 
1880), besides several long poems, burlesques, and 
political pamphlets, and "The Life of Lord George 
Bentinck." "Vivian Grey" was very smartly done, 
and fashionable Lonaon was captivated by its clever 
satire and witty dialogue. On the profits of his 
earlier books he traveled extensively in Europe and the 
Levant, where his Oriental imagination was strongly 
stimulated. Before he was thirty he had won his way 
into the most exclusive circles of London society, the 
vogue of his novels and the brilliancy of his conversational 
powers commending him to the "smart set" of the 
metropolis. His determination "to be somebody" in 
spite of the disadvantages of blood, birth, and lack of 
money led him to ridiculous affectations — yet, however 
ridiculed at the time, they served his turn, and brought 



172 Ten Englishmen 

him the notice that he craved. N. P. Wilhs, who saw the 
much-talked-about young IsraeUtish noveUst at Lady 
Blessington's, wrote of the strange vision: **He was 
sitting in a window looking on Hyde Park, the last rays 
of sunlight reflected from the gorgeous gold flowers of a 
splendidly embroidered waistcoat. Patent leather pumps, 
a white stick with a black cord and tassel, and a quantity 
of chains about his neck and pockets served to make him 
a conspicuous object. He has one of the most remark- 
able faces I ever saw. He is lividly pale, and but for the 
energy of his actions and the strength of his lungs, would 
seem to be a victim of consumption. His eye is black as 
Erebus, and has the most mocking, lying-in-wait sort of 
expression conceivable. His mouth is alive with a kind 
of working and impatient nervousness; and when he has 
burst forth as he does constantly with a particularly suc- 
cessful cataract of expression, it assumes a curl of triumph- 
ant scorn that would be worthy of Mephistopheles. His 
hair is as extraordinary as his taste in waistcoats. A 
thick, heavy mass of jet-black ringlets falls on his left 
cheek almost to his collarless stock, which on the right 
temple is parted and put away with the smooth carefulness 
of a girl." A lady who met him at dinner described him as 
appareled in a black velvet coat lined with satin, purple 
trousers with a gold stripe on the outside seam, a scarlet 
waistcoat, lace wristbands to his finger tips, white gloves 
with flashy rings worn outside. Add to these the flowing 
black ringlets, and do not wonder that his hostess told the 
young man that he was making a fool of himself. Froude 
says he dressed in this fantastic guise to give the impression 
of folly so that his sudden displays of brilliancy might have 
the more striking effect coming from such an unlikely source. 



Beaconsfield and the British Empire 173 

Self-esteem was abounding in the young Hebrew, and 
he did not hesitate to compare himself with others to his 
own advantage. At twenty-nine he wrote his sister after 
an evening in the gallery of the House of Commons, 

** Heard Macaulay's best speech but between 

ourselves I could floor them ah!" Egotism it doubtless 
was, but it sprang from no empty confidence in himself. 
The time was not distant when he was the acknowledged 
master of the House which looked so tempting from the 
galleries. He had offered himself as a Tory with Radical 
ideas — a combination as unusual as his style of apparel 
— to the electors of High Wycombe in June, 1832, but 
was beaten, as he was again in the autumn. It was 
said that in one of his early candidacies he replied to an 
elector, who had asked him on what he intended to stand, 
in the sententious phrase '* on my head!" In 1834 he 
stood for Taunton, only to be defeated a third time. 
O^Connell, who had helped him in his first campaign, was 
mortally offended by Disraeli's allusion to his ^'bloody 
hand" in the Taunton canvass. The Irish orator, in a 
bitter rejoinder at Dublin, denounced Disraeli as a Jewish 
traitor, **the heir at law of the blasphemous thief that died 
upon the cross." 

After many fruitless struggles the coveted seat was 
won, and in 1837 Benjamin Disraeli entered the House of 
Commons for Maidstone, his colleague being Wyndham 
Lewis, the friend whose good offices had gained him the 
nomination. Not long after the death of Mr. Lewis, in 
1838, Mr. Disraeli married his lively widow, a woman to 
whose devotion not less than to her ample fortune he 
owed a debt of gratitude which he never failed to 
acknowledge. 



174 Ten Englishmen 

Welcomed to the ranks of the Tory opposition by Sir 
Robert Peel, the ambitious recruit plunged at once into 
oratory — only to have his maiden effort drowned by the 
jeers of his hostile hearers, led by O'Connell's ''tail" of 
Irish members. They mocked at his appeals for a hear- 
ing, and though the Tories cheered his pluck, he could 
not make it go. ''At last, losing his temper, which until 
now he had preserved in a wonderful manner, he paused 
in the midst of a sentence, and looking the Liberals indig- 
nantly in the face, raised his hands and opening his mouth 
as widely as its dimensions would admit, said, in a 
remarkably loud and almost terrific tone, 'I have begun, 
several times, many things, and I have often succeeded at 
last; aye, sir, and though I sit down now, the time will 
come v/hen you will hear me.' " 

Nor did he ever again fail to get a hearing. He spoke 
often and to the point, enlivening his solid argument with 
touches of wit and gleams of imagination which light up 
the dreary pages of the parliamentary journals. At the 
first he was the steady supporter of Peel, but this clever 
man of ideals, imagination, and insight, could have little 
in common with that prosy, plodding man of business, 
whose stronghold was in the esteem of the plodding mid- 
dle classes. When the Tories came into power in 1 84 1, 
with Peel as Prime Minister, he found no place in his 
government for the supporter whose talent all parties had 
now begun to recognize. The slight bred coolness, and 
as Peel began to veer towards free trade principles, 
Disraeli, gathering a few ardent Tory protectionists about 
him, made himself a thorn in the premier's side. His 
caustic sayings about Peel's acceptance of the principles 
of the opposition were the talk of the clubs. "The right 



Beaconsfield and the British Empire 175 

honorable gentleman," he said, "caught the Whigs 
bathing and he walked away with their clothes." He 
characterized the premier's genius as "sublime medioc- 
rity," amid shouts of applause, and his government, 
raised to office by protectionist votes, yet steadily pro- 
moting free trade measures, he branded as "organized 
hypocrisy." His hostility to the repeal of the Corn Laws 
was based not so much upon economic argument superior 
to that of Cobden, as upon his fundamental belief that 
the greatness of the English nation in all past centuries 
had been derived from the wise rule of the aristocratic, 
land-owning class, and a fond behef that the retention of 
the tariff upon imported agricultural produce would sup- 
port this ancient pillar of the constitution. Furthermore, 
his contention that England's adoption of free trade would 
be met by rival nations with high tariffs against imports 
of English goods has been borne out by the facts of sub- 
sequent history, against the confident assertion of Cobden 
and the Manchester school of economists that the world 
would soon follow the lead of England in throwing down 
all artificial barriers to the exchange of commodities. 
Peel carried his bill, as we have seen, but the protection- 
ists wreaked their vengeance by overthrowing his govern- 
ment in the moment of victory. 

From the hour of his defeat, in 1846, Sir Robert Peel 
was no longer a party chief. The Tory aristocracy who 
had lent their aid to the fatal coalition against him were 
led at first by Lord George Bentinck, but the real director 
of the organization was Disraeli. In 1849 h^ succeeded 
to the formal leadership of the Conservative opposition in 
the House of Commons, and in 1852, when the Russell 
ministry went out, he took office under Lord Derby as 



1*76 Ten Englishmen 

Chancellor of the Exchequer, and leader of the House of 
Commons. The Free Trade League bristled up at this 
resurgence of the protectionist champions, but Disraeli 
was too wise to invite a renewal of that contest which the 
voice of the nation had settled, and the subject was left to 
lapse into innocuous desuetude for half a century. Repre- 
senting but a minority in Parliament, the ministry could 
maintain itself but a few months. December, 1852, 
found the Whigs again in power, where they remained 
until 1859, Disraeli using his talents the while to build up 
and consolidate the Tory opposition and to disintegrate 
the discordant elements. Free Trade, Liberal, Peelite, and 
Radical, who rallied under the government banner. 

In 1858-59 the Derby-Disraeh ministry enjoyed a 
second brief lease of office, and after the .long Whig 
administration of Palmerston and Russell (1859-66), they 
succeeded to the direction of affairs for the third time. 

Out of office Disraeli continued to entertain Parliament 
with the audacious, briUiant, and often masterly speeches 
which he alone of his generation could deliver, and his 
short-lived experiences as the director and spokesman of 
the government policy equally evidenced his administrative 
abihty, his control of his followers, and his knowledge of 
the spirit and temper of the Commons and the nation. 

When Benjamin Disraeli, the young novelist, was pre- 
sented to Lord Melbourne at a social gathering in the 
early '30's his lordship had graciously asked how he 
could serve him. To which the ffippant young man had 
replied that he would like to be Prime Minister. In Feb- 
ruary, 1868, the resignation of Lord Derby raised Mr. 
Disraeli to the height of his youthful ambition. He was 
premier until December, 1868, when his great rival and 



Beaconsfield and the British Empire 177 

former party-associate, Gladstone, wrested the honor 
from his grasp. 

During the third Derby-Disraeli ministry, the Reform 
Bill of 1867 was passed. Thirty-five years before the 
Grey-Russell Whigs had disfranchised the rotten boroughs 
and admitted the middle class people of the towns to citi- 
zenship and parliamentary representation. As years 
passed the demand increased for a further extension of 
the electoral franchise. The Chartists of 1848 demanded 
universal suffrage and were sternly repressed. After 
nearly a score of years the Gladstonian Liberals were pre- 
pared to gratify this demand in considerable measure, but 
before they could fully develop their policy, they were out 
and the Conservatives were in. It was at this juncture 
that Disraeli took **the leap in the dark," carrying, in 
1867, an act *^ which, in its inevitable developments must 
give the franchise to every householder in the United 
Kingdom; and he gained for his party the credit, if credit 
it was, of having passed a more completely democratic 
measure than the most radical responsible statesman had 
yet dared to propose." His accession to the premiership 
evoked fresh testimony to his popularity. Mr. Froude 
makes no concealment of the attacks which were made 
upon him by open foes, or the disguised contempt of 
members of the aristocracy whose pride of birth had 
nevertheless allowed them to avail themselves of his talent 
for leadership. **Yet," says the same biographer, '^when 
he went down to Parliament for the first time in his new 
capacity, he was wildly cheered by the crowds in Palace 
Yard. The shouts were echoed along Westminster Hall 
and through the lobbies, and were taken up again warmly 
and heartily in the House itself, which had been the scene 



lyS Ten Englishmen 

of so many conflicts — the same House in which he had 
been hooted down when he first arose to speak." 

When Gladstone's first administration (1868-74) had 
exhausted its volcanic energies, Disraeli for a second time 
became the chief minister of the Queen, this time not to 
finish out a weakened term, but with a clear majority at 
his back, and with the confidence of the Crown and the 
nation. Internal reforms had gone far enough for the 
time, and foreign affairs for which Mr. Gladstone had 
shown less aptitude needed attention from some one who 
could reproduce the spirit of a Canning, a Palmerston, or 
a John Bull. 

The statesmen who had directed the affairs of the 
nation for the past thirty years, had seen Httle to be 
thankful for in the extensive colonial possessions of Eng- 
land. They had for the most part been ''Little England- 
ers, ' ' to use a term of recent coinage, and while using the 
military power of the government to put down armed 
resistance to English sovereignty and to defend the integ- 
rity of the boundaries of the distant colonies, had done 
Httle else to hold the fabric together. Some of the most 
eminent among them were of the opinion that the posses- 
sion of the colonies was an element of weakness. In the 
pursuance of such theories the English commonwealths of 
British America, AustraHa, and New Zealand were 
allowed to develop forms of local government but slightly 
removed from independence. Their constitutions, ap- 
proved by English Liberal cabinets, allowed them to 
impose duties against the mother country, and exempted 
them from most of the burdens of taxation and military 
service which are the natural incidents of dependence. 

Disraeli's view of all this was vigorously expressed in 



Beaconsfield and the British Empire 179 

1872. "Gentlemen, if you look to the history of this 
country since the advent of Liberalism, forty years ago, 
you will find that there has been no effort so continuous, 
so subtle, supported by so much energy, and carried on 
with so much ability and acumen, as the attempts of 
Liberalism to effect the disintegration of the empire of 
England. And, gentlemen, of all its efforts, this is the 

one which has been the nearest to success Not 

that I, for one, object to self-governm.ent But 

self-government when it was conceded ought to have been 
conceded as part of a great policy of imperial consolida- 
tion. It ought to have been accompanied with an imperial 
tariff, by securities for the people of England for the 
enjoyment of the unappropriated lands which belonged to 
the sovereign as their trustee, and by a military code 
which should have precisely defined the means and the 
responsibilities by which the colonies should be defended, 
and by which, if necessary, this country should call for 
aid from the colonies themselves. It ought further to 
have been accompanied by some representative council in 
the metropolis, which would have brought the colonies 
into constant and continuous relations with the home gov- 
ernment. All this, however, was omitted because those 
who advised that policy looked upon the colonies of Eng- 
land, looked even upon our connection with India as a 
burden on this country, viewing everything in a financial 
aspect, and totally passing by those moral and political 
considerations which make nations great." Further on 
in the same speech he had declared, "in my opinion no 
minister in this country will do his duty who neglects any 
opportunity of reconstructing as much as possible our 
colonial empire, and of responding to those distant sym- 



i8o Ten Englishmen 

pathies which may become the source of incalculable 
strength and happiness to this land." Yet his own minis- 
try either had no such opportunity, or neglected it, and 
this far-seeing view of imperial relations was bequeathed 
unfulfilled for the guidance of those who were to come 
after. 

Disraeli's six years of government were, however, sig- 
nalized by a series of exploits which restored the tarnished 
prestige of England in the councils of Europe and doubt- 
less served, however indirectly, to increase the pride of the 
colonies in the mother country. 

When the ship canal was constructed by de Lesseps, 
connecting the Mediterranean with the Red Sea and 
shortening by one-half the route to India, the project had 
been frowned on by England. In 1875 the Khedive of 
Egypt, the largest stockholder in the canal, became hard- 
pressed for funds, and a telegram from Disraeli bought the 
entire block of shares for the English government for four 
million pounds. This stroke secured English control of 
the waterway, and was immensely popular with the nation. 
The Prince of Wales was sent with great pomp on a tour 
of India, and in 1876 the Queen's title was made more 
imposing by the addition of the words ** Empress of 
India." The latter move may be viewed as a counter- 
stroke against recent advances of the Russians, whose dis- 
position to raise the Eastern Question was irrepressible. 
The revolt of certain Christian states of Turkey in Europe 
had revived the animosities which had smouldered since 
the Crimean War, and while Russia prepared to support 
the claims of the Christians, Disraeli again ranged Eng- 
land on the side of the Turk. The Queen-Empress, as if 
to give personal support to the policy of her Prime Minis- 




"MOSE IN EGITTO!!!" 

Cartoon from Punch. December ii, 1875. hitting otf Disraeli's purchase of 

the Suez Shares. 



Beaconsfield and the British Empire i8i 

ter, raised him to the peerage with the title of Earl of 
Beaconsfield (1876). 

The hatreds and intrigues in the Balkan peninsula led 
to a bloody war between Russia and Turkey. It soon 
became evident that unless saved by English intervention, 
Constantinople must fall into the hands of the Czar. 
Beaconsfield 's spirited language at this crisis was para- 
phrased in the London music-halls in the famous couplet: 

" We don't want to fight, but, by Jingo, if we do. 
We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money, 
too," 

a song which gave the name of * 'Jingo" to the war policy 
of the Conservatives. An English fleet was sent to Con- 
stantinople, and England refused to recognize the terms 
of the treaty of San Stephano, which Russia had extorted 
from her conquered foe, and demanded that the Eastern 
Question should be submitted to a congress of the powers. 
That congress was held at Berlin in the summer of 1878. 
Prince Bismarck presided, and Lord Beaconsfield attended 
in person, accompanied by the Foreign Secretary, Lord 
Salisbury (since premier). The provisions of the Berlin 
treaty are too complex to be explained here, but they 
removed the grip of Russia from the throat of the Sultan, 
and established a group of Balkan principalities of vary- 
ing degrees of autonomy. "Peace with honor" Beacons- 
field announced as the outcome of his mission to Berlin, 
while the majority of the nation applauded. 

Beaconsfield' s star culminated at the Congress of Ber- 
lin. The efforts of his administration to defend India on 
the side of Russia by strengthening English hold on 
Afghanistan, led to the second Afghan War with its 
bloody massacres and humiliating episodes. In South 



1 82 Ten Englishmen 

Africa the imperial policy gave offense to blacks as well 
as whites, and led to wars which reflected little honor 
upon British arms. Hard times and consequent hardship 
among the agricultural classes at home combined with the 
petty but distressing occurrences in Asia and Africa to 
bring about a Liberal victory at the general election of 
1880, and in April of that year Beaconsfield resigned his 
portfolio and seals to his great rival, Mr. Gladstone. 

It was characteristic of the man's indomitable energy 
to signalize the year of his fall by writing another novel, 
**Endymion, " a remarkable feat for a man of seventy-six 
years. He continued to appear in Parliament until near 
the day of his death, which took place in London, April 
19, 1 88 1, on the night following Easter Day. 

Among the eulogies pronounced in Parliament upon 
the fallen leader none was more satisfactory in its expla- 
nation of Disraeli's remarkable career than that of the 
Marquis of Salisbury, who, at his death, succeeded to the 
chieftancy in the Conservative party. "To me," he said, 
''as I believe to all others who have worked with him, his 
patience, his gentleness, his unswerving and unselfish 
loyalty to his colleagues and fellow-laborers, have made 
an impression that will never leave me so long as life 
endures. But these feelings could only affect a limited 
circle of his immediate adherents. The impression which 
his career and character have made on the vast mass of 
his countrymen must be sought elsewhere. To a great 
extent, no doubt, it is due to the peculiar character of his 
genius, to its varied nature, to the wonderful combination 
of qualities he possessed, and which rarely reside in the 
same brain. To some extent also there is no doubt that 
circumstances — that is, the social difficulties which 




D 

oa 
n 

< 
n 



W 
O 

X 
H 

W 

D 

O 



W 



Beaconsfield and the British Empire 183 

opposed themselves to his early rise and the splendid per- 
severance by which they were overcome — impressed his 
countrymen who love to see exemplified that career open 
to all persons, whatever their initial difficulties may be, 
which is one of the characteristics of the institutions of 
which they are most proud. 

**Zeal for the greatness of England was the passion of 
his mind. Opinions might, and did, differ deeply as to 
the measures and steps by which expression was given 
to the dominant feelings, and more and more, as life drew 
near its close, as the heat and turmoil of controversy were 
left behind, as the gratification of every possible ambition 
negatived the suggestion of any inferior motives and 
brought out into greater prominence the purity and 
strength of this one intense feeling the people of this 
country recognized the force with which this desire domi- 
nated his actions. In the questions of interior policy 
which divided classes, he had to consider them, he had to 
judge them, and to take his course accordingly. It 
seemed to me that he treated them always as of second- 
ary interest compared to the one great question — how the 
country to which he belonged might be made united and 
strong!" 

The party to which Disraeli's genius gave direction 
and victory came again to power after the defeat of the 
Gladstonian schemes for the relief of Ireland, and rein- 
forced by the Liberal-Unionist contingent under Joseph 
Chamberlain it has governed England for nearly twenty 
years. Its head. Lord Salisbury, one of Beaconsfield's 
most trusted lieutenants, has been true to the ruling ideas 
of his brilliant chief. The idea of an English empire, its 
parts inspired with a common purpose, has been zealously 



184 Ten Englishmen 

nourished. The jubilee (1887) and diamond jubilee 
(1897), of Queen Victoria's reign, were seized upon to 
give prominence and honor to the colonial representa- 
tives. The premiers of the colonies have met in confer- 
ence at London and the whole vast and complex problem 
of federal empire has come under discussion. The prob- 
lem is still far from solution, but that the relation has 
passed beyond the stage of mere sentiment is shown in 
many ways. The joy of the colonies over the diamond 
jubilee (1897), their united grief at Victoria's passing 
(1901), their welcome to the son of Edward VII., upon 
his progress around the world, and the unanimity with 
which volunteers sprang to the aid of England in the 
South African War — this response of English hearts in 
Canada, Australia, and elsewhere to the drum-beat of the 
empire was the fulfillment of one of Beaconsfield's imagi- 
native dreams. A writer in the "Spectator" two years 
earlier had made the prophecy which in the century's end 
came to be realized: 

" The night is full of darkness and doubt, 
The stars are dim and the Hunter's out: 
The waves begin to wrestle and moan; 
The Lion stands by his shore alone, 
And sends to the bounds of Earth and Sea 
First low notes of the thunder to be. 
Then East and West through the vastness grim, 
The whelps of the Lion answer him." 

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 

1. What different elements make up the present British 
Empire ? 

2. What prominence did Disraeli gain from his speech 
against Feel in 1846 ? . 



Beaconsfield and the British Empire 185 

3. Describe his early life and personal appearance. 

4. What unsuccessful attempts did he make to enter Par- 
liament ? 

5. Describe his maiden speech in the House. 

6. How did he regard Peel and the Corn Laws? 

7. What was " the leap in the dark,' ' which he took in 1867 ? 

8. How had the statesmen immediately preceding Disraeli 
looked upon English colonial possessions ? 

g. What was his point of view as expressed in 1872? 

10. How did England secure control of the Suez Canal ? 

11. What position did England take with reference to the 
Russo-Turkish War? 

12. What circumstances led to the overthrow of Disraeli's 
party ? 

13. What was Lord Salisbury's estimate of Disraeli ? 

14. How have Disraeli's ideas been recognized under the 
Salisbury government? 

15. What is "jingoism "? 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Life of Beaco7isfield. J. A. Froude. 

Life of Lord George Bentiiick. Benjamin Disraeli. 

Coiiingsby. Benjamin Disraeli. 

Imperial Federation. George R. Parkin. 

Problems of Greater Britain. Sir C. W. Dilke. 



APPENDIX 



I. WELLINGTON 
WATERLOO 

[This dispatch by the Duke of Wellington touching upon, 
the battle of Waterloo is in his usual plain and straightforward 
manner.] 

To Marshal Lord Beresford, G. C. B.: You will have 
heard of our battle of the i8th. Never did I see such a 
pounding match. Both were what the boxers call "glut- 
tons." Napoleon did not manoeuver at all. He just 
moved forward in the old style in columns, and was driven 
off in the old style. The only difference was, that he 
mixed cavalry with his infantry, and supported both with 
an enormous quantity of artillery. 

I had the infantry for some time in squares, and I had 
the French cavalry walking about as if they had been our 
own. I never saw the British infantry behave so well. 

Wellesley. 

OPPOSITION TO REFORM 

[In the House of Lords in the course of the debate on the 
King's Speech, Nov. 2, 1830, the Prime Minister, the Duke of 
Wellington, spoke in part as follows. The inflexible Toryism 
of the speech disgusted the country and led to the defeat of 
the ministry. Earl Grey came into power and carried the 
Reform Bill.] 

186 



Appendix 187 

This subject brings me to what noble lords have said 
respecting the putting the country in a state to overcome 
the evils likely to result from the late disturbances in 
France. The noble Earl has alluded to the propriety of 
effecting parliamentary reform. The noble Earl has, 
however, been candid enough to acknowledge that he is 
not prepared with any measure of reform, and I can have 
no scruple in saying that his Majesty's government is as 
totally unprepared with any plan as the noble Lord. 
Nay, I, on my own part, will go further, and say, that I 
have never read or heard of any measure up to the present 
moment which can in any degree satisfy my mind that the 
state of the representation can be improved, or be rendered 
more satisfactory to the country at large than at the 
present moment. I will not, however, at such an un- 
seasonable time, enter upon the subject, or excite discus- 
sion, but I shall not hesitate to declare unequivocally what 
are my sentiments upon it. I am fully convinced that the 
country possesses at the present moment a legislature 
which answers all the good purpose of legislation, and 
this to a greater degree than any legislature ever has 
answered in any country whatever. I will go further and 
say, that the legislature and the system of representation 
possess the full and entire confidence of the country — 
deservedly possess that confidence — and the discussions in 
the legislature have a very great influence over the opin- 
ions of the country. I will go still further, and say, that 
if at the present moment I had imposed upon me the duty 
of forming a legislature for any country, and particularly 
for a country like this, in possession of great property of 
various descriptions, I do not mean to assert that I could 
form such a legislature as we possess now, for the nature 



1 88 Appendix 

of man is incapable of reaching such excellence at once; 
but my great endeavor would be to form some description 
of legislature which would produce the same results. The 
representation of the people at present contains a large 
body of the property of the country, and in which the 
landed interests have a preponderating influence. Under 
these circumstances, I am not prepared to bring forward 
any measure of the description alluded to by the noble 
Lord. I am not only not prepared to bring forward any 
measure of this nature, but I will at once declare that as 
far as I am concerned, as long as I hold any station in' 
the government of the country, I shall always feel it my 
duty to resist such measures when proposed by others. 

THE LAUREATE'S TRIBUTE 

[The feeling of the English nation toward the Duke of Wel- 
lington was nobly expressed by Tennyson in his great " Ode," 
published in 1852, the year of the Duke's death.] 

I 

Bury the Great Duke 

With an empire's lamentation; 
Let us bury the Great Duke 

To the noise of the mourning of a mighty nation — 
Mourning when their leaders fall, 
Warriors carry the warrior's pall, 
And sorrow darkens hamlet and hall. 

II 

Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore? 
Here in streaming London's central roar. 
Let the sound of those he wrought for, 



Appendix 189 

And the feet of those he fought for 
Echo round his bones forevermore. 

Ill 

Lead out the pageant, sad and slow, 

As fits a universal woe; 

Let the long, long procession go, 

And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow. 

And let the mournful martial music blow; 

The last great Englishman is low. 

IV 

Mourn, for to us he seems the last, 

Remembering all his greatness in the past. 

No more in soldier fashion will he greet 

With lifted hand the gazer in the street. 

O friends, our chief state-oracle is mute; 

Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood. 

The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute, 

Whole in himself, a common good. 

Mourn for the man of amplest influence, 

Yet clearest of ambitious crime ; 

Our greatest, yet with least pretense, 

Great in council and great in war. 

Foremost captain of his time. 

Rich in saving common sense, 

And as the greatest only are. 

In his simplicity sublime. 

O good gray head which all men knew, 

O voice from which their omens all men drew, 

O iron nerve to true occasion true, 

O fall'n at length that tower of strength. 



190 Appendix 

Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew, 

Such was he whom we deplore ! 

The long self-sacrifice of life is o'er, 

The great world-victor's victor will be seen no more. 



VI 

Who is he that cometh like an honored guest, 

With banner and with music, with soldier and with 

priest. 
With a nation weeping and breaking on my rest? 
Mighty seaman, this is he 
Was great by land as thou by sea. 
Thine island loves thee well, thou famous man, 
The greatest sailor since our world began. 
Now to the roll of muffled drums 
To thee the greatest soldier comes; 
For this is he 

Was great by land as thou by sea; 
His foes were thine; he kept us free; 
O give him welcome, this is he 
Worthy of our gorgeous rites, 
And worthy to be laid by thee; 
For this is England's greatest son, 
He that gained a hundred fights 
Nor ever lost an English gun; 
This is he that far away 
Against the myriads of Assaye 
Clashed with his fiery few and won; 
And underneath another sun, 
Warring on a later day, 



Appendix ^ 191 

Round affrighted Lisbon drew 

The treble works, the vast designs 

Of his labored rampart-lines, 

Where he greatly stood at bay, 

Whence he issued forth anew, 

And ever great and greater grew, 

Beating from the wasted vines 

Back to France her banded swarms, 

Back to France with countless blows, 

Till o'er the hills her eagles flew, 

Beyond the Pyrenean pines; 

Followed up in valley and glen 

With blare of bugle, clamor of men, 

Roll of cannon and clash of arms, 

And England pouring on her foes. 

Such a war had such a close. 

Again their ravening eagle rose 

In anger, wheeled on Europe shadowing wings. 

And barking for the thrones of kings; 

Till one that sought but duty's iron crown, 

On that loud Sabbath shook the spoiler down; 

A day of onsets, of despair! 

Dashed on every rocky square 

Their surging charges foamed themselves away; 

Last the Prussian trumpet blew; 

Thro' the long tormented air 

Heaven flashed a sudden jubilant ray. 

And down we swept and charged and overthrew. 

So great a soldier taught us there 

What long-enduring hearts could do 

In that world-earthquake, Waterloo! 

Mighty seaman, tender and true. 



192 Appendix 

And pure as he from taint of craven guile, 

O savior of the silver-coasted isle, 

O shaker of the Baltic and the Nile, 

If aught of things that here befall 

Touch a spirit among things divine. 

If love of country move thee there at all, 

Be glad because his bones are laid by thine ! 

And thro' the centuries let a people's voice 

In full acclaim, 

A people's voice. 

The proof and echo of all human fame, 

A people's voice, when they rejoice. 

At civic revel and pomp and game, 

Attest their great commander's claim 

With honor, honor, honor, honor to him. 

Eternal honor to his name. 



VII 

A people's voice! We are a people yet, 
Tho' all men else their nobler dreams forget. 
Confused by brainless mobs and lawless powers; 
Thank Him who isled us nere, and roughly set 
His Briton in blown seas and storming showers. 
We have a voice with which to pay the debt 
Of boundless love and reverence and regret 
To those great men who fought and kept it ours. 
And keep it ours, O God, from brute control; 
O statesmen, guard us, guard the eye, the soul 
Of Europe, keep our noble England whole. 
And save the one true seed of freedom sown 
Betwixt a people and their ancient throne. 



Appendix 193 

That sober freedom, out of which there springs 
Our loyal passion for our temperate kings; 
For, saving that, ye help to save mankind 
Till public wrong be crumbled into dust, 
And drill the raw world for the march of mind. 
Till crowds at length be sane and crowns be just. 
But wink no more in slothful overtrust. 
Remember him who led your hosts; 
He bade you guard the sacred coasts. 
Your cannons molder on the seaward wall; 
His voice is silent in the council hall 
Forever; and whatever tempests lour 
Forever silent; even if they broke 
In thunder, silent; yet remember all 
He spoke among you, and the man who spoke; 
Who never sold the truth to serve the hour, 
Nor paltered with Eternal God for power; 
Who let the turbid streams of rumor flow 
Thro' either babbling world of high and low; 
Whose life was work; whose language rife 
With rugged maxims hewn from life; 
Who never spoke against a foe; 
Whose eighty winters freeze with one rebuke 
All great self-seekers trampling on the right : 
Truth-teller was our England's Alfred named; 
Truth-lover was our English Duke; 
Whatever record leap to light 
He never shall be shamed. 



194 Appendix 

IX 

Peace, his triumph will be sung 

By some yet unmolded tongue, 

Far on in summers that we shall not see; 

Peace, it is a day of pain 

For one about whose patriarchal knee 

Late the little children clung; 

O peace, it is a day of pain 

For one upon whose hand and heart and brain 

Once the weight and fate of Europe hung. 

Ours the pain, be his the gain! 

More than is of man's degree 

Must be with us, watching here 

At this, our great solemnity. 

Whom we see not, we revere; 

We revere, and we refrain 

From talk of battles loud and vain, 

And brawling memories all too free. 

For such a wise humility 

As befits a solemn fame: 

We revere, and while we hear 

The tides of music's golden sea 

Setting toward eternity, 

Uplifted high in heart and hope are we, 

Until we doubt not that for one so true 

There must be other nobler work to do 

Than when he fought at Waterloo; 

And Victor he must ever be. 

For tho^ the Giant Ages heave the hill 

And break the shore, and evermore 

Make and break and work their will; 



Appendix 195 

Tho' world on world in myriad myriads roll 

Round us, each with different powers, 

And other forms of life than ours. 

What know we greater than the soul? 

On God and godlike men we build our trust. 

Hush, the Dead March wails in the people's ears; 

The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears; 

The black earth yawns; the mortal disappears; 

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. 

He is gone who seemed so great — 

Gone; but nothing can bereave him 

Of the force he made his own 

Being here, and we beheve him 

Something far advanced in state. 

And that he wears a truer crown 

Than any wreath that man can weave him. 

Speak no more of his renown. 

Lay your earthly fancies down. 

And in the vast cathedral leave him, 

God accept him, Christ receive him! 



II. GEORGE CANNING 
POLITICAL POETRY 

["The Needy Knife-Grinder," which follows, was one of the 
most notable contributions which appeared in " The Anti-Jaco- 
bin.' It is scarcely necessary to point out its satire upon the 
humanitarian sympathies of those Englishmen who had been 
carried away by the ideas of the French Revolution. The 
verses— a parody of Stanley's "Sapphics" — were the joint pro- 
duction of George Canning and John Hookham Frere.] 



196 Appendix 

THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY AND THE 
NEEDY KNIFE-GRINDER 

FRIEND OF HUMANITY 

Needy knife-grinder! Whither are you going? 
Rough is the road; your wheel is out of order; 
Bleak blows the blast; your hat has got a hole in't, 
So have your breeches! 

Weary knife-grinder! little think the proud ones 
Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike 
Road, what hard work 'tis crying all day *' Knives and 
Scissors to grind O!" 

Tell me, knife-grinder, how you came to grind knives? 
Did some rich man tyrannically use you? 
Was it some squire? or parson of the parish? 
Or the attorney? 

Was it the squire for killing of his game? Or 
Covetous parson, for his tithes distraining? 
Or roguish lawyer, made you lose your little 
All in a lawsuit? 

Have you not read the ** Rights of Man," by Tom Paine? 
Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids. 
Ready to fall as soon as you have told your 
Pitiful story. 

KNIFE-GRINDER 

Story, God bless you, I have none to tell, sir; 
Only last night a-drinking at the Chequers, 
This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were 
Torn in a scuffle. 



Appendix 197 

Constables came up for to take me into 
Custody; they took me before the justice; 
Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish 
Stocks for a vagrant. 

I should be glad to drink your honor's health in 
A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence; 
But for my part I never love to meddle 
With politics, sir. 

FRIEND OF HUMANITY 

I give thee sixpence; I will see thee damned first, 
Wretch! whom no sense of wrongs 
Can rouse to vengeance! 
Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded. 
Spiritless outcast! 

{Kicks the K^g, overttcms his wheel, and exit in a trans- 
Port of republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy ?[ 

THE GOVERNMENT OF ENGLAND. 

[The following extract from a speech on Parliamentary 
Reform affords an excellent example of his style of eloquence.] 

Other nations, excited by the example of the liberty 
which this country has long possessed, have attempted to 
copy our Constitution; and some of them have shot beyond 
it in the fierceness of heir pursuit. I grudge not to 
other nations that share of liberty which they may acquire ; 
in the name of God, let them enjoy it ! But let us warn 
them that they lose not the object of their desire by the 
very eagerness with which they attempt to grasp it. In- 
heritors and conservators of national freedom, let us, while 



198 Appendix 

others are seeking it in restlessness and trouble, be a 
steady and shining Hght to guide their course; not a 
wandering meteor to bewilder and mislead them. 

Let it not be thought that this is an unfriendly or dis- 
heartening counsel to those who are either struggling 
under the pressure of harsh government, or exulting in the 
novelty of sudden emancipation. It is addressed much 
rather to those who, though cradled and educated amidst 
the sober blessings of the British Constitution, pant for 
other schemes of liberty than those which that Constitu- 
tion sanctions, other than are compatible with a just 
equality of civil rights, or with the necessary restraints of 
social obligations; of some of whom it may be said, in 
the language which Dryden puts into the mouth of one of 
the most extravagant of his heroes, that 

" They would be free as nature first made man, 
Ere the base laws of servitude began. 
When wild in the woods the noble savage ran." 

Noble and swelling sentiments! but such as cannot be 
reduced into practice. Grand ideas! but which must be 
qualified and adjusted by a compromise between the aspir- 
ings of individuals, and a due concern for the general 
tranquility; must be subdued and chastened by reason 
and experience before they can be directed to any useful 
end! A search after abstract perfection in government 
may produce in generous minds an enterprise and enthusi- 
asm to be recorded by the historian and to be celebrated 
by the poet; but such perfection is not an object of 
reasonable pursuit, because it is not one of possible 
attainment; and never yet did a passionate struggle after 
an absolutely unattainable object fail to be productive of 
misery to an individual, of madness and confusion to a 



Appendix 199 

people. As the inhabitants of those burning dimates 
which lie beneath a tropical sun sigh for the coolness of 
the mountain and the grove, so (all history instructs us) 
do nations which have basked for a time in the torrid 
blaze of unmitigated liberty too often call upon the 
shades of despotism, even of military despotism, to cover 
them — a protection which blights while it shelters; which 
dwarfs the intellect and stunts the energies of man, but 
to which a wearied nation willingly resorts from intolerable 
heats and from perpetual danger of convulsion. 

Our lot is happily cast in the temperate zone of free- 
dom, the clime best suited to the development of the 
moral qualities of the human race, to the cultivation of 
their faculties, and to the security as well as the improve- 
ment of their virtues; a clime, not exempt, indeed, from 
variations of the elements, but variations which purify 
while they agitate the atmosphere that we breathe. Let 
us be sensible of the advantages which it is our happiness 
to enjoy. Let us guard with pious gratitude the flame of 
genuine liberty, that fire from heaven, of which our Con- 
stitution is the holy depository; and let us not, for the 
chance of rendering it more intense and more radiant, 
impair its purity or hazard its extinction. 



in. GEORGE STEPHENSON 

[The bill for the charter of the Liverpool and Manchester 
railway was referred to the Committee of the House of Com- 
mons, March 21, 1825. The canal companies had employed 
able counsel to oppose it. A month was consumed before the 
company's engineer, Mr. George Stephenson, was called by 



200 Appendix 

the Committee. The following account of his first day's exam- 
ination is from his fascinating biography by Dr. Samuel Smiles.] 

On the 25th George Stephenson was called into the 
witness-box. It was his first appearance before a com- 
mittee of the House of Commons, and he well knew what 
he had to expect. He was aware that the whole force of 
the opposition was to be directed against him; and if 
they could break down his evidence, the canal monopoly 
might yet be upheld for a time. Many years afterward, 
when looking back at his position on this trying occasion, 
he said: '*When I went to Liverpool to plan a line from 
thence to Manchester, I pledged myself to the directors 
to attain a speed of ten miles an hour. I said I had no 
doubt the locomotive might be made to go much faster, 
but that we had better be moderate at the beginning. 
The directors said I was quite right; for that if, when 
they went to Parhament, I talked of going at a greater 
rate than ten miles an hour, I should put a cross upon the 
concern. It was not an easy task for me to keep the 
engine down to ten miles an hour, but it must be done, 
and I did my best. I had to place myself in that most 
unpleasant of all positions — the witness-box of a parlia- 
mentary committee. I was not long in it before I began 
to wish for a hole to creep out at! I could not find 
words to satisfy either the committee or myself. I was 
subjected to the cross-examination of eight or ten barris- 
ters, purposely, as far as possible, to bewilder me. Some 
member of the committee asked if I was a foreigner, and 
another hinted that I was mad. But I put up with every 
rebuff, and went on with my plans, determined not to be 
put down." 

George Stephenson stood before the committee to 



Appendix 201 

prove what the pubHc opinion of that day held to be 
impossible. The self-taught mechanic had to demonstrate 
the practicability of accomplishing that which the most 
distinguished engineers of the time regarded as imprac- 
ticable. Clear though the subject was to himself, and 
familiar as he was with the powers of the locomotive, it 
was no easy task for him to bring home his convictions, 
or even to convey his meaning, to the less informed minds 
of his hearers. In his strong Northumbrian dialect, he 
struggled for utterance, in the face of the sneers, inter- 
ruptions, and ridicule of the opponents of the measure, 
and even of the committees, some of whom shook their 
heads and whispered doubts as to his sanity when he 
energetically avowed that he could make the locomotive 
go at the rate of twelve miles an hour! It was so grossly 
in the teeth of all the experience of honorable members, 
that the man "must certainly be laboring under a 
delusion!" 

And yet his large experience of railways and loco- 
motives, as described by himself to the committee, entitled 
this "untaught, inarticulate genius," as he has been 
described, to speak with confidence on the subject. Be- 
ginning with his experience as a brakesman at Killing- 
worth in 1803, he went on to state that he was appointed 
to take the entire charge of the steam engines in 18 1 3, 
and had superintended the railroads connected with the 
numerous collieries of the grand allies from that time 
downward. He had laid down or superintended the rail- 
ways at Burradon, Mount Moor, Springwell, Bedlington, 
Hetton, and Darlington, besides improving those at 
Killingworth, South Moor, and Derwent Crook. He 
had constructed fifty-five steam-engines, of which sixteen 



ao2 Appendix 

were locomotives. Some of these had been sent to 
France. The engines constructed by him for the work- 
ing of the KilHngworth Railroad, eleven years before, had 
continued steadily at work ever since, and fulfilled his 
most sanguine expectations. He was prepared to prove 
the safety of working high-pressure locomotives on a rail- 
road, and the superiority of this mode of transporting 
goods over all others. As to speed, he said he had 
recommended eight miles an hour with twenty tons, and 
four miles an hour with forty tons; but he was quite con- 
fident that much more might be done. Indeed he had no 
doubt they might go at the rate of twelve miles. As to 
the charge that locomotives on a railroad would so terrify 
the horses in the neighborhood that to travel on horse- 
back or to plow the adjoining fields would be rendered 
highly dangerous, the witness said that horses learned to 
take no notice of them, though there were horses that 
would shy at a wheelbarrow. A mail-coach was likely to 
be more shied at by horses than a locomotive. In the 
neighborhood of KilHngworth, the cattle in the fields went 
on grazing while the engines passed them, and the farm- 
ers made no complaints. 

Mr. Alderson, who had carefully studied the subject, 
and was well skilled in practical science, subjected the 
witness to a protracted and severe cross-examination as 
to the speed and power of the locomotive, the stroke of 
the piston, the slipping of the wheels upon the rails, and 
various other points of detail. Stephenson insisted that 
no sHpping took place, as attempted to be extorted from 
him by the counsel. He said, "It is impossible for sHp- 
ping to take place so long as the adhesive weight of the 
wheel upon the rail is greater than the weight to be 



Appendix 203 

dragged after it." There was a good deal of interrup- 
tion to the witness's answers by Mr. Alderson, to which 
Mr. Joy more than once objected. As to accidents, 
Stephenson knew of none that had occurred with his 
engines. There had been one, he was told, at the Mid- 
dleton Colliery, near Leeds, with a Blenkinsop engine. 
The driver had been in liquor, and put a considerable 
load on the safety-valve, so that upon going forward the 
engine blew up and the man was killed. But he added, 
if proper precautions had been used with that boiler, the 
accident could not have happened. The following cross- 
examination occurred in reference to the question of 
speed: 

'*Of course," he was asked, "when a body is moving 
upon a road, the greater the velocity the greater the 
momentum that is generated?" ** Certainly." **What 
would be the momentum of forty tons moving at the rate 
of twelve miles an hour.?" **It would be very great." 
**Have you seen a railroad that would stand that?" 
**Yea." "Where?" "Any railroad that would bear 
going four miles an hour; I mean to say, that if it would 
bear the weight at four miles an hour, it would bear it at 
twelve." "Taking it at four miles an hour, do you mean 
to say that it would not require a stronger railway to carry 
the same weight twelve miles an hour?" "I will give an 
answer to that. I dare say every person has been over 
ice when skating, or seen persons go over, and they know 
that it would bear them better at a greater velocity than 
it would if they went slower; when they go quick, the 
weight in a measure ceases." "Is not that upon the 
hypothesis that the railroad is perfect?" "It is; and I 
mean to make it perfect." 



204 Appendix 

It is not necessary to state that to have passed through 
his severe ordeal scatheless needed no small amount of 
courage, intelligence, and ready shrewdness on the part 
of the witness. Nicholas Wood, who was present on the 
occasion, has since stated that the point on which Stephen- 
son was hardest pressed was that of speed. **I believe," 
he says, ''that it would have lost the company their bill if 
he had gone beyond eight or nine miles an hour. If he 
had stated his intention of going twelve or fifteen miles an 
hour, not a single person would have believed it to be 
practicable." Mr. Alderson had, indeed, so pressed the 
point of ** twelve miles an hour," and the promoters were 
so alarmed lest it should appear in evidence that they 
contemplated any such extravagant rate of speed, that 
immediately on Mr. Alderson sitting down, Mr. Joy pro- 
ceeded to re-examine Stephenson, with the view of remov- 
ing from the minds of the committee an impression so 
unfavorable, and as they supposed, so damaging to their 
case. **With regard," asked Mr. Joy, ''to all those 
hypothetical questions of my learned friend, they have been 
all put on the supposition of going twelve miles an hour; 
now that is not the rate at which, I believe, any of the 
engines of which you have spoken have traveled?" 
"No," replied Stephenson, "except as an experiment for 
a short distance." "But what they have gone has been 
three, five, or six miles an hour.?" "Yes." "So that 
those hypothetical cases of twelve miles an hour do not 
fall within your general experience?" "They do not." 

The committee also seem to have entertained some 
alarm as to the high rate of speed which had been spoken 
of, and proceeded to examine the witness farther on the 
subject. They supposed the case of the engine being 



Appendix 205 

upset when going at nine miles an hour, and asked what, 
in such a case, would become of the cargo astern. To 
which the witness replied that it would not be upset. 
One of the members of the committee pressed the witness 
a little farther. He put the following case: *' Suppose, 
now, one of these engines to be going along a railroad at 
the rate of nine or ten miles an hour, and that a cow 
were to stray upon the line and get in the way of the 
engine; would not that, think you, be a very awkward 
circumstance?" "Yes," replied the witness, with a 
twinkle in his eye, "very awkward — for the coo!" The 
honorable member did not proceed farther with his cross- 
examination; to use a railway phrase, he was "shunted." 
Another asked if animals would not be very much fright- 
ened by the engine passing at night, especially by the 
glare of the red-hot chimney.? "But how would they 
know that it wasn't painted?" said the witness. 



IV. LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

THOMAS MOORE TO LORD RUSSELL 

[About the year 1816 Lord Russell's health being delicate he 
was rarely in his seat in the House of Commons, and even ex- 
pressed his determination to withdraw from public life alto- 
gether. This ''Remonstrance" from the poet Thomas Moore 
is valuable at least for the view which it gives of the considera- 
tions which impelled the scion of the great Whig house to serve 
his country.] 

What ! thou, with thy genius, thy youth, and thy name ! 

Thou, born of a Russell, whose instinct to run 
The accustom'd career of thy sires is the same 

As the eaglet's to soar with his eyes on the sun; 



2o6 Appendix 

Whose nobility comes to thee, stamp 'd with a seal 

Far, far more ennobling than monarch e'er set; 
With the blood of thy race offer 'd up for the weal 

Of a nation that swears by that martyrdom yet ! 
Shalt thou be faint-hearted, and turn from the strife, 

From the mighty arena, where all that is grand, 
And devoted, and pure, and adorning in life 

Is for high-thoughted spirits Hke thine to command? 
Oh no! never dream it; while good men despair 

Between tyrants and traitors, and timid men bow, 
Never think for an instant thy country can spare 

Such a light from her dark'ning horizon as thou! 
With a spirit as meek as the gentlest of those 

Who in life's sunny valley lie shelter' d and warm. 
Yet bold and heroic as ever yet rose 

To the top cliffs of Fortune, and breasted her storm; 
With an ardour for liberty, fresh as in youth 

It first kindles the bard and gives light to his lyre. 
Yet mellow'd e'en now by that mildness of truth. 

Which tempers, but chills not, the patriot fire; 
With an eloquence, not like those rills from a height. 

Which sparkle and foam, and in vapour are o'er. 
But a current that works out its way into light 

Through the filt'ring recesses of thought and of lore: 
Thus gifted, thou never canst sleep in the shade; 

If the stirring of genius, the music of fame. 
And the charm of thy cause have not power to persuade, 

Yet think how to freedom thou'rt pledged by thy name. 
Like the boughs of that laurel, by Delphi's decree. 

Set apart for the fame and its service divine, 
All the branches that spring from the old Russell tree 

Are by liberty claim' d for the use of her shrine. 



Appendix 207 

ON BRIBERY AT ELECTIONS 

[After his unsuccessful contest for a seat in the House of 
Commons for Huntingdon in 1826, Lord John Russell drafted a 
measure for the prevention of bribing and sent it to Lord Al- 
thorp with a letter which was published in " The Times " and 
attracted much notice. The following passages are extracted.] 

Bribery is clearly forbidden by the law, and it is com- 
petent for every British subject to petition the House of 
Commons, praying them to inquire into any particular 
instance of that offense which may have occurred under 
his own observation. The House may, if it thinks fit, 
refer such a petition to the Committee of Privileges, or 
to any other committee it may choose to appoint for the 
purpose. 

Bribery in a candidate, however, makes void the elec- 
tion, and a petition complaining of bribery committed, 
with a view to the last election in a borough, is properly 
an election petition. But a term of fourteen days is the 
Hmited period within which a petition of this nature can 
be presented, and various onerous duties are imposed 
upon the petitioner — he must enter into a recognizance 
to pursue his complaint, and must incur an expense of 
some hundreds or even some thousands in prosecuting the 
inquiry. 

Still this mode of inquiry is now so established that 
when upon two or three occasions complaints have been 
sent to me of bribery in a particular borough, I feared to 
bring them before the House of Commons lest I should 
be told that the petition was an election petition which 
could not otherwise be entertained. 



!2o8 Appendix 

From this state of things great impunity has been 
allowed to gross acts of corruption. A gentleman from 
London goes down to a borough of which he scarcely 
before knew the existence. The electors do not ask his 
political opinions; they do not inquire into his private 
character; they only require to be satisfied of the impur- 
ity of his intentions. If he is elected no one, in all 
probability, contests the validity of his return. His 
opponents are as guilty as he is and no other person will 
incur the expense of a petition for the sake of a pubhc 
benefit. Fifteen days after the meeting of Parliament a 
handsome reward is distributed to each of the worthy and 
independent electors. 

This is the practice against which the resolutions of 
the late House of Commons were directed. They pledge 
the House to inquiry not on a question between two 
rivals contending for a seat, but on a question afi"ecting 
the character and purity of Parliament. They allow 
complaints to be made not only against the sitting mem- 
ber, but against the borough ; they enlarge the time within 
which such complaints may be made, and instead of 
deterring petitioners by expense, they provide that a 
specific complaint, if fit to be inquired into, shall be 
inquired into for the sake of the public at the public cost. 

Such is the proposition approved by the late House of 
Commons, and which I venture to think not unworthy 
of being countenanced by a Whig reformer. There are 
many other abuses in our present mode of elections, to 
which local remedies might, I think, be successfully 
applied; nor is there any one more fit or more able than 
yourself to conduct such measures. Undoubtedly many 



Appendix 209 

obstacles would be raised to delay our progress, especially 
on the part of "the presiding genius of the House of 
Lords." But I am persuaded that reformers in general 
have never made a sufficient estimate of the support they 
would receive, or set a sufficient value on the objects they 
might attain, by a vigorous attack on particular abuses. 

THE CHAMPION OF REFORM 

[Lord John Russell's share in carrying the Reform Act of 
1832 was celebrated by Lord Lyttleton in the following lines.] 

In England's worst days, when her rights and her laws 

Were spurned by a Prince of the fell Stuart line, 
A Russell stood forth to assert her lost cause. 

And perish'd a martyr at liberty's shrine. 
The smell of that sacrifice mounted to heaven; 

The cry of that blood rose not thither in vain; 
The crime of the tyrant was never forgiven; 

And a blessing was breathed on the race of the slain. 
Dethroned and degraded, the Stuart took ffight. 

He fled to the land where the Bourbon bore sway, 
A curse clung to his offspring, a curse and a blight. 

And in exile and sorrow it wither' d away. 
But there sprang from the blood of the martyr a race 

Which for virtue and courage unrival'd has shone; 
Its honors still worn with a patriot grace. 

Still loved by the people, revered by the throne. 
And see where in front of the battle again 

A Russell, sweet liberty's champion, appears; 
While myriads of freemen compose his bright train. 

And the blessing still lives through the long lapse of 
years. 



2IO Appendix 



V. RICHARD COBDEN 

[During the parliamentary session of 1846 when the bill for 
the repeal of the Corn Law was passing through its parliamen- 
tary stages, Mr. Cobden's letters from London to personal 
friends and to his wife afford frequent glimpses of his interest, 
his suspense, and his final exultation.] 

''London, February 19th. To T. H. Ashworth: 
Your letter has followed me here. Peel's declaration in 
the House that he will adopt immediate repeal if it is 
voted by the Commons, seems to me to remove all diffi- 
culty from Villiers's path; he can now propose his old 
motion without the risk of doing any harm even if he 
should not succeed. As respects the future course of the 
league, the less that is said now about it publicly the 
better. If Peel's measure should become law, then 
the Council will be compelled to face the question, 'What 
shall the League do during the three years.?' It has 
struck me that under such circumstances we might 
absolve the large subscribers from all further calls, put 
the staff of the League on a peace footing, and merely 
keep alive a nominal organization to prevent any attempt 
to undo the good work we have effected. Not that I fear 
any reaction. On the contrary, I believe the popularity 
of free-trade principles is only in its infancy, and that it 
will every year take firmer hold of the head and heart of 
the community. But there is perhaps something due to 
our repeated pledges that we will not dissolve until the 
Corn Laws are entirely abolished. In any case the work 
will be effectually finished during this year, provided the 
League preserve its firm and united position; and it is to 



Appendix 211 

prevent the slightest appearance of disunion that I would 
avoid now talking in public about the future course of the 
League. It is the League, and it only, that frightens the 
peers. It is the League alone which enables Peel to repeal 
the law. But for the League the aristocracy would have 
hunted Peel to a premature grave, or consigned him like 
Lord Melbourne to a private station at the bare mention 
of total repeal. We must hold the same rod over the 
Lords until the measure is safe; after that I agree with 
you in thinking that it matters little whether the League 
dies with honors, or hngers out a few years of inglorious 
existence." 

"May 1 6th. To F. W. Cobden: I last night had the 
glorious privilege of giving a vote in the majority for the 
third reading of the bill for the total repeal of the Corn 
Law. The bill is now out of the House, and will go up 
to the Lords on Monday. I trust we shall never hear the 
name of Xorn' again in the Commons. There was a 
good deal of cheering and waving of hats when the 
Speaker had put the question, 'that this bill do now pass.' 
Lord Morpeth, Macaulay, and others came and shook 
hands with me, and congratulated me on the triumph of 
our cause. I did not speak, simply for the reason that I 
was afraid that I should give more life to the debate, and 
afford an excuse for another adjournment; otherwise I 
could have made a telling and conciliatory appeal. Vil- 
liers tried to speak at three o'clock this morning, but I did 
not think he took the right tone. He was fierce against 
the protectionists, and only irritated them, and they 
wouldn't hear him. The reports about the doings in the 
Lords are still not satisfactory or conclusive. Many 
people fear still that they will alter the measure witli a 



212 Appendix 

view to a compromise. But I hope we shall escape any 

further trouble upon the question I feel little 

doubt that I shall be able to pay a visit to your father at 
midsummer. At least nothing but the Lords throwing 
back the bill upon the country could prevent my going 
into Wales at the time, for I shall confidently expect them 
to decide one way or another by the 15th of June. I 
shall certainly vote and speak against the Factory Bill 
next Friday." 

''May l8th. To Mrs. Cobden: We are so beset by 
contradictory rumors, that I know not what to say about 
our prospects in the Lords. Our good, conceited friend 

told me on Wednesday that he knew the peers 

would not pass the measure, and on Saturday he assured 
me that they would. And this is a fair specimen of the 
way in which rumors vary from day to day. This morn- 
ing Lord Monteagle called on me, and was strongly of the 
opinion that they would 'move on, and not stand in 
people's way.' A few weeks will now decide the matter 
one way or another. I think I told you that I dined at 
Moffat's last Wednesday. As usual he gave us a first- 
rate dinner. After leaving Moffat's at eleven o'clock, I 

went to a squeeze at Mrs. . It was as usual 

hardly possible to get inside the drawing-room doors. I 
only remained a quarter of an hour, and then went home. 
On Saturday I dined at Lord and Lady John's, and met 
a select party, whose names I see in to-day's papers. 
.... I am afraid if I associate much with the aristoc- 
racy, they will spoil me. I am already half-seduced by 
the fascinating ease of their parties." 

"May 19th. To F. W. Cobden: I received your let- 
ters with the enclosures. We are still on the tenter-hooks 



Appendix 213 

respecting the conduct of the Lords. There is, however, 
one cheering point: the majority on the second reading is 
improving in the stock-books of the whippers-in. It is 
now expected that there will be forty to fifty majority at 
the second reading. This will of course give us a better 
margin for the committee. The government and Lord 
John (who is very anxious to get the measure through) 
are doing all they can to insure success. The ministers 
from Lisbon, Florence, and other continental cities 
(where they are peers) are coming home to vote in com- 
mittee. Last night was a propitious beginning in the 
Lords. The Duke of Richmond was in a passion, and 
his tone and manner did not look like a winner." 

*'June loth. To F. W. Cobden: There is another 
fit of apprehension about the Corn Bill, owing to the uncer- 
tainty of Peel's position. I can't understand his motive 
for constantly poking his coercive bill in our faces at 
these critical moments. The Lords will take courage at 
anything that seems to weaken the government morally. 
They are like a fellow going to be hanged who looks out 
for a reprieve, and is always hoping for a lucky escape 
until the drop falls." 

*'June 1 8th. To Mrs. Cobden: The Lords will not 
read the Corn Bill the third time before Tuesday next, 
and I shall be detained in town to vote on the Coercion 
Bill on Thursday, after which I shall leave for Man- 
chester, I send you a 'Spectator' paper, by which you 
will see that I am a 'likeable' person. I hope you will 
appreciate this." 

**June 23d. To Mrs. Cobden: I have been plagued 
for several days with sitting to Herbert for the picture of 
the Council of the League, and it completely upsets my 



214 Appendix 

afternoons. Besides my mind has been more than ever 
upon the worry about that affair which is to come off 
after the Corn Bill is settled, and about which I hear all 
sorts of reports. You must therefore excuse me if I 

could not sit down to write a letter of news I 

thought the Corn Bill would certainly be read the third 
time on Tuesday (to-morrow), but I now begin to think 
it will be put off till Thursday. There is literally no end 
to this suspense. But there are reports of Peel being out 
of office on Friday next, and the peers may yet ride 
restive." 

'^June 26th. To Mrs. Cobden: My Dearest Kate — 
Hurrah ! Hurrah ! the Corn Bill is law, and now my work 
is done. I shall come down to-morrow morning by the 
six o'clock train in order to be present at a Council meet- 
ing at three, and shall hope to be home in time for a late 
tea." 

A CORN-LAW RHYME 

[Ebenezer Elliott, "The Corn-Law Rhymer," contributed 
to the agitation such " Songs " as this.] 

Child, is thy father dead? 

Father is gone! 
Why did they tax his bread? 

God's will be done! 
Mother has sold her bed; 

Better to die than wed! 
Where shall she lay her head? 

Home we have none ! 



Appendix 215 

Father clammed thrice a week — 

God's will be done! 
Long for work did he seek, 

Work he found none; 
Tears on his hollow cheek 

Told what no tongue could speak! 
Why did his master break? 

God's will be done! 

Doctor said air was best — 

Food we had none; 
Father with panting breast 

Groaned to be gone; 
Now he is with the blest — 

Mother says death is best! 
We have no place of rest — 

Yes, we have one! 



VI. SIR ROBERT PEEL 

[On the night when the bill for the repeal of the Corn Laws 
came up for its passage in the House of Commons, the Prime 
Minister, who had been elected on a protectionist "platform," 
concluded the debate in a powerful speech, which culminated 
in these impressive sentences.] 

THE REPEAL OF THE CORN LAWS (1846) 

This night is to decide between the policy of continued 
relaxation of restriction, or the return to restraint and 
prohibition. This night you will select the motto which 
is to indicate the commercial policy of England. Shall it 



2i6 Appendix 

be *' advance" or ** recede"? Which is the fitter motto 
for this great empire? Survey our position, consider the 
advantage which God and nature have given us, and the 
destiny for which we are intended. We stand on the con- 
fines of western Europe, the chief connecting hnk between 
the Old World and the New. The discoveries of science, 
the improvement of navigation, have brought us within 
ten days of St. Petersburg, and will soon bring us within 
ten days of New York. We have an extent of coast 
greater in proportion to our population and the area of 
our land than any other great nation, securing to us 
maritime strength and superiority. Iron and coal, the 
sinews of manufacture, give us advantages over every 
rival in the great competition of industry. Our capital 
far exceeds that which they can command. In ingenu- 
ity, in skill, in energy, we are inferior to none. Our 
national character, the free institutions under which we 
live, the liberty of thought and action, an unshackled 
press, spreading the knowledge of every discovery and of 
every advance in science — combine with our natural and 
physical advantages to place us at the head of those 
nations which profit by the free interchange of their 
products. And is this the country to shrink from com- 
petition? Is this the country to adopt a retrograde 
policy? Is this the country which can only flourish in the 
sickly, artificial atmosphere of prohibition? Is this the 
country to stand shivering on the brink of exposure to 
the healthful breezes of competition? 

Choose your motto . * ' Advance ' ' or " recede . ' ' Many 
countries are watching with anxiety the selection you may 
make. Determine for ** advance," and it will be the 
watchword which will animate and encourage in every 



Appendix aiy 

state the friends of liberal commercial policy. Sardinia 
has taken the lead. Naples is relaxing her protective 
duties and favoring British produce. Prussia is shaken 
in her adherence to restriction. The government of 
France will be strengthened; and backed by the intelli- 
gence of the reflecting, and by conviction of the real wel- 
fare of the great body of the community, will perhaps 
ultimately prevail over the self-interest of the commercial 
and manufacturing aristocracy which now predominates in 
her chambers. Can you doubt that the United States 
will soon relax her hostile tariff, and that the friends of 
a freer commercial intercourse — the friends of peace 
between the two countries — will hail with satisfaction the 
example of England.? 

This night, then — if on this night the debate shall 
close — you will have to decide what are the principles by 
which your commercial policy is to be regulated. Most 
earnestly, from a deep conviction, founded not upon the 
limited experience of three years alone, but upon the 
experience of the results of every relaxation of restriction 
and prohibition, I counsel you to set the example of liber- 
ality to other countries. Act thus, and it will be in per- 
fect consistency with the course you have hitherto taken. 
Act thus, and you will provide an additional guarantee for 
the continued contentment, and happiness, and well-being 
of the great body of the people. Act thus, and you will 
have done whatever human sagacity can do for the pro- 
motion of commercial prosperity. 

You may fail. Your precautions may be unavailing. 
They may give no certain assurance that mercantile and 
manufacturing prosperity will continue without interrup- 
tion. It seems to be incident to great prosperity that 



21 8 Appendix 

there shall be a reverse — that the time of depression shall 
follow the season of excitement and success. That time 
of depression must perhaps return; and its return may- 
be coincident with scarcity caused by unfavorable seasons. 
Gloomy winters, like those of 1841 and 1842, may again 
set in. Are those winters effaced from your memory.? 
From mine they never can be 

These sad times may recur. **The years of plenteous- 
ness may have ended," and "the years of dearth may 
have come" ; and again you may have to offer the unavail- 
ing expressions of sympathy, and the urgent exhortations 
to patient resignation 

When you are again exhorting a suffering people to 
fortitude under their privations, when you are telling 
them, *' These are the chastenings of an all-wise and 
merciful Providence, sent for some inscrutable but just 
and beneficent purpose, it may be, to humble our pride, 
or to punish our unfaithfulness, or to impress us with the 
sense of our own nothingness and dependence on His 
mercy," when you are thus addressing your suffering 
fellow-subjects, and encouraging them to bear without 
repining the dispensations of Providence, may God grant 
that by your decision of this night you may have laid in 
store for yourselves the consolation of reflecting that such 
calamities are, in truth, the dispensations of Providence — 
that they have not been caused, they have not been aggra- 
vated, by laws of man, restricting, in the hour of scarcity, 
the supply of food! 



Appendix 219 

VII. LORD SHAFTESBURY 
INTRODUCTION TO THE CAUSE OF LABOR 

[In February, 1833, when the failure of Michael Sadler to be 
returned to Parliament left his "Short Time Bill " without a 
champion, Lord Ashley (afterwards known as Lord Shaftes- 
bury) was asked to lead the cause. His decision was thus an- 
nounced to the local "Short Time Committees " in the manu- 
facturing towns.] 

Rev. G. S. Bull to Short Time Committees. 

London, February 6, 1833. 

Dear Sir: — I have to inform you that in furtherance 
of the object of the delegates' meeting, I have succeeded, 
under Mr. Sadler's sanction, in prevailing upon Lord 
Ashley to move his (Mr. Sadler's) bill. 

Lord Ashley gave notice yesterday afternoon, at half- 
past two, of a motion on the 5 th of March, for leave **to 
renew the bill brought in by Mr. Sadler last session, to 
regulate the labor of children in the mills and factories 
of the United Kingdom, with such amendments and addi- 
tions as appear necessary from the evidence given before 
the select Committee of this House." 

This notice, I am very happy to say (for I was pres- 
ent), was received with hearty and unusual cheers from 
all parts of a House of more than three hundred. No 
other notice was so cheered; and more than forty, some 
of them very popular, were given at the same time. 

I am informed that Lord Ashley received many unex- 
pected assurances of support immediately after his notice, 
and has had more since. 

Pray call your committee together directly, and read 



220 Appendix 

this to them. As to Lord Ashley, he is noble, benevo- 
lent, and resolute in mind, as he is manly in person. I 
have been favored with several interviews, and all of the 
most satisfactory kind. On one occasion his Lordship 
said, "I have only zeal and good intentions to bring to 
this work; I can have no merit in it, that must all belong 
to Mr. Sadler. It seems no one else will undertake it, 
so I will; and without cant or hypocrisy, which I hate, I 
assure you I dare not refuse the request you have so 
earnestly pressed. I believe it is my duty to God and to 
the poor, and I trust he will support me. Talk of 
trouble! What do we come to Parliament for?" 

In a letter he writes: **To me it appeared an affair, 
less of policy than of religion, and I determined, therefore, 
at all hazards to myself, to do what I could in furtherance 
of the views of that virtuous and amiable man" (meaning 
Mr. Sadler). 

I have just left his Lordship, and find him more deter- 
mined than ever. He says, it is your cause; if you sup- 
port him, he will never flinch. 

Yours most faithfully, G. S. Bull. 

THE MOTIVES OF A REFORMER 

[To Richard Oastler, a zealous leader of the working-people 
outside of Parliament, who had pledged him his support, Lord 
Ashley wrote this characteristic letter.] 

Lord Ashley to Mr. Richard Oastler. 

February i6, 1833. 
Dear Sir: — I am much obliged to you for your kind 
and energetic letter; much, very much, is owing to your 
humanity and zeal, and though I cannot reckon deeply on 



Appendix 221 

the gratitude of multitudes, yet I will hope that your 
name will, for years to come, be blessed by those children 
who have suffered, or would have suffered, the tortures 
of a factory. It is very cruel upon Mr. Sadler that he is 
debarred from the joy of putting the crown on his beloved 
measure; however, his must be the honor, though another 
may complete it ; and for my part, I feel that, if I were to 
believe that my exertions ought to detract the millionth 
part from his merits, I should be one of the most unprin- 
cipled and contemptible of mankind. Ask the question 
simply. Who has borne the real evil, who has encountered 
the real opposition, who roused the sluggish public to senti- 
ments of honor and pity? Why, Mr. Sadler; and I come 
in (supposing I succeed) to terminate in the twelfth hour 
his labor of the eleven. I greatly fear my ability to carry 
on this measure. I wish, most ardently I wish, that some 
other had been found to undertake the cause; nothing 
but the apprehension of its being lost induced me to 
acquiesce in Mr. Bull's request. I entertain such strong 
opinions on the matter that I did not dare, as a Christian, 
to let my diffidence, or love of ease, prevail over the 
demands of morality and religion. Yours, 

Ashley. 

THE DIARY OF A PHILANTHROPIST 

[Lord Shaftesbury's copious diaries were not intended for 
publication, but late in life he permitted Mr. Hodder to intro- 
duce selections from them in his authorized Biography. These 
extracts from the period when he was fighting the cause of the 
London chimney-sweeps, reflect the spirit of the great philan- 
thropist, the legislator who at twenty-five proposed " to found 
a public policy upon the principles of the Bible."] 

July 4th. Anxious, very anxious, about my sweeps; 



222 Appendix 

the Conservative (?) Peers threaten a fierce opposition, 
and the Radical Ministers warmly support the bill. Nor- 
manby has been manly, open, kind-hearted, and firm. 
As I said to him in a letter, so say I now, *'God help him 
with the bill, and God bless him for it ! " I shall have no 
ease or pleasure in the recess, should these poor children 
be despised by the Lords, and tossed to the mercy of their 
savage purchasers. I find that Evangelical religionists 
are not those on whom I can rely. The Factory Ques- 
tion, and every question for what is called * 'humanity," 
receive as much support from the **men of the world" 
as from the men who say they will have nothing to do 
with it! 

I do not wonder at the Duke of Wellington — I have 
never expected from him anything of the ''soft and 
tender" kind. Let people say what they will, he is a hard 
man. Steven tells me he left the Oxford Petition at 
Apsley House, thinking that the Duke, as Chancellor, 
would present it; he received this answer, "Mr. Steven 
has thought fit to leave some petitions at Apsley House; 
they will be found with the porter." 

July 2 1 St. Much anxiety, hard labor, many hopes, and 
many fears, all rendered useless by "counting out the 
House." The object of years within my grasp, and put 
aside in a moment. A notice to investigate the condition 
of all the wretched and helpless children in pin-works, 
needle-works, collieries, etc. The necessary and bene- 
ficial consequence of the Factory Question! God knows 
I had felt for it, and prayed for it; but the day arrived; 
everything seemed adverse — a morning sitting, a late period 
of the session, and a wet afternoon; and true enough, at 
five o'clock there were but thirty-seven members, and 



Appendix _ 223 

these mostly Radicals or Whigs.. Shall I have another 
opportunity? The inquiry, without a statement in Parlia- 
ment, will be but half the battle, nay, not so much — I 
must have public knowledge and public opinion working 
with it. Well, it is God's cause, and I commit it alto- 
gether to him. I am, however, sadly disappointed, but 
how weak and short-sighted is man! This temporary 
failure may be the harbinger of success. 

August 24th. Succeeded in both my suits. I under- 
took them in a spirit of justice. I constituted myself, no 
doubt, a defender of the poor, to see that the poor and 
miserable had their rights; but '*I looked, and there was 
none to help. I wondered that there was none to uphold; 
therefore God's arm, it brought salvation to me, and his 
fury, it upheld me." I stood to lose several hundred 
pounds, but I have not lost a farthing; I have advanced 
the cause, done individual justice, anticipated many 
calamities by this forced prevention, and soothed, I hope, 
many angry, discontented Chartist spirits by showing them 
that men of rank and property can, and do, care for the 
rights and feelings of all their brethren. Let no one ever 
despair of a good cause for want of coadjutors; let him 
persevere, persevere, persevere, and God will raise him 
up friends and assistants! I have had, and still have, 
Jowett and Low; they are matchless. 

September 1 6th. I hear encouraging things, both of 
my speech in the House of Commons, and of my suit v. 
Stocks. The justice of the suit is so manifest that even 
(so to speak) **my enemies are at peace with me." 
What man ever lost in the long run by seeking God's 
honor.? 

September 19th. Steven wrote to me yesterday, and 



224 Appendix 

gave me information that he had at last succeeded in 
negotiating the dehvery of the wretched sweep behind my 
house in London. I had begun to negotiate, but the 
master stood out for more money than was fair, and we 
determined to seek the unnatural father of the boy, and 
tempt him, by the offer of a gratuitous education. We 
have done so, and have prospered; and the child will this 
day be conveyed from his soot-hole to the Union School 
on Norwood Hill, where, under God's blessing and espe- 
cial, merciful grace, he will be trained in the knowledge, 
and love, and faith of our common Lord and only Saviour 
Jesus Christ. I entertain hopes of the boy; he is described 
as gentle, and of a sweet disposition; we all know he has 
suffered, and were eager to rescue him from his temporal 
and spiritual tyrant. May God, in his unbounded good- 
ness and mercy, accept and defend the child, and train 
him up to his honor and service, now and forever, through 
the mediation and love of our dear and blessed Lord! 



THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 
[Mrs Browning's poem belongs to this epoch and agitation.] 

Do you hear the children weeping. Oh, my brothers. 

Ere the sorrow comes with years? 
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers. 

And that cannot stop their tears. 
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows. 

The young birds are chirping in the nest. 
The young fawns are playing with the shadows. 

The young flowers are blowing towards the west; 



Appendix 225 

But the young, young children, Oh, my brothers, 

They are weeping bitterly! 
They are weeping in the play-time of the others, 

In the country of the free. 
Do you question the young children in the sorrow, 

Why their tears are falling so? 
The old man may weep for his to-morrow, 

Which is lost in long ago; 
The old tree is leafless in the forest. 

The old year is ending in the frost, 
The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest, 

The old hope is hardest to be lost! 

But the young, young children, Oh, my brothers. 

Do you ask them why they stand 
Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers 

In our happy fatherland ? 
They look up with their pale and sunken faces, 

And their looks are sad to see. 
For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses 

Down the cheeks of infancy; 
**Your old earth," they say, *'is very dreary,'* 

*'Our young feet," they say, "are very weak; 
Few paces have we taken, yet are weary — 

Our grave-rest is very far to seek; 
Ask the aged why they weep, and not the children. 

For the outside earth is cold. 
And we young ones stand without in our bewildering, 

And the graves are for the old." 



226 Appendix 

"True," say the children, "it may happen 

That we die before our time; 
Little Alice died last year, her grave is shapen 

Like a snowball in the rime. 
We looked into the pit prepared to take her; 

Was no room for any work in the close clay! 
From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her. 

Crying, 'Get up, little Alice, it is day.' 
If you listen by that grave in sun and shower 

With your ear down, little Ahce never cries; 
Could we see her face, be sure we could not know her. 

For the smile has time for growing in her eyes! 
And merry go her moments, lull'd and still' d in 

The shroud by the kirk chime. 
It is good when it happens, ' ' say the children, 

"That we die before our time. 

Alas! Alas! the children! They are seeking 

Death in life, as best to have; 
They are binding up their hearts away from breaking 

With a cerement from the grave. 
Go out, children, from the mine and from the city; 

Sing out, children, as the thrushes do; 
Pluck your handfuls of the meadow cowslips pretty. 

Laugh aloud to feel your fingers let them through! 
But they answer, "Are your cowslips of the meadows 

Like our weeds anear the mine.? 
Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows. 

From your pleasures fair and fine ! 
For oh," say the children, "we are weary, 

And we cannot run or leap; 
If we car'd for any meadows it were merely 

To drop down in them and sleep. 



Appendix 227 

Our kne*es tremble sorely in the stooping, 

We fall upon our faces, trying to go; 
And underneath our heavy eyelids drooping, 

The reddest flower would look as pale as snow. 
For all day we drag our burden tiring 

Through the coal-dark underground; 
Or all day we drive the wheels of iron 

In the factories round and round. 

**For all day the wheels are droning, turning; 

Their wind comes in our faces. 
Till our hearts turn, our heads with pulses burning. 

And the walls turn in their places; 
Turns the sky in high window blank and reeling. 

Turns the long light that drops adown the wall, 
Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling, . 

All are turning, all the day, and we with all; 
And all day the iron wheels are droning 

And sometimes we could pray, 
*0, ye wheels' (breaking out in mad moaning) 

'Stop! be silent for to-day!' " 

Aye, be silent! Let them hear each other breathing 

For a moment mouth to mouth! 
Let them touch each other's hands in a fresh wreathing 

Of their tender human youth! 
Let them feel that this cold metallic motion 

Is not all the life God fashions or reveals! 
Let them prove their living souls against the notion 

That they live in you, or under you, O wheels! 
Still, all day the iron wheels go onward, 

Grinding life down from its mark; 
And the children's souls which God is calling sunward 

Spin on blindly in the dark. 



22 8 Appendix 

Now, tell the poor young children, Oh, my brothers. 

To look up to Him and pray; 
So the blessed One who blesseth all the others, 

Will bless them another day. 
They answer, '*Who is God that he should hear us. 

While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirr'd? 
When we sob aloud the human creatures near us 

Pass by, hearing not, or answer not, a word. 
And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding) 

Strangers speaking at the door; 
Is it likely God, with angels singing round him, 

Hears our weeping any more? 

*'Two words, indeed, of praying we remember. 

And at midnight's hour of harm, 
'Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber. 

We say softly for a charm. 
We know no other words except 'Our Father,' 

And we think that, in some pause of the angels' song, 
God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather, 

And hold both within his right hand which is strong. 
'Our Father!' If he heard us he would surely 

(For they call him good and mild) 
Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely, 

'Come and rest with me, my child.' " 

"But no!" say the children, weeping faster, 

"He is speechless as a stone; 
And they tell us, of his image is the master 

Who commands us to work on. 
Go to," say the children, "up in heaven, 

Dark, wheel-like turning clouds are all we find. 
Do not mock us; grief has made us unbelieving; 

We look up for God, but tears have made us blind." 



Appendix 229 

Do you hear the children weeping and disproving, 

Oh, my brothers, what ye preach? 
For God's possible is taught by his world's loving, 

And the children doubt of each. 

And well may the children weep before you! 

They are weary ere they run; 
They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory 

Which is brighter than the sun. 
They know the grief of man without its wisdom; 

They sink in man's despair without its calm; 
Are slaves, without the liberty in Christendom; 

Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm; 
Are worn as if with age, yet unretrievingly 

The harvest of its memories cannot reap — 
Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly 

Let them weep! Let them weep! 
They look up with their pale and sunken faces 

And their look is dread to see. 
For they mind you of their angels in high places 

With eyes turned on Deity. 
*'How long," they say, **How long, O cruel nation. 

Will you stand to move the world, on a child's heart — 
Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation. 

And tread onward to your throne amid the mark? 
Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper, 

And your purple shows your path! 
But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper 

Than the strong man in his wrath. 



230 Appendix 



VIII. LORD PALMERSTON 

THE MORAL INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND 

[In March, 1849, Lord Palmerston dilated as follows upon 
the moral greatness and influence of England.] 

I say, in contradiction to the honorable gentleman, 
that this country does stand well with the great majority 
of the foreign powers; that the character of this country 
stands high; that the moral influence of England is 
great — a moral influence that I do not take credit to this 
government for having created, but which is founded on 
the good sense and the wise and enlightened conduct of 
the British nation. Foreign countries have seen that in 
the midst of the events which have violently convulsed 
other countries in Europe, and which have shaken to their 
foundations ancient institutions, this country has held fast 
to her ancient landmarks, standing firm in her pride of 
place : 

Fell not, but stands unshaken, from within, 
Or from without, 'gainst all temptations armed. 

That has given confidence to foreign countries in the gov- 
ernment and people of this country. When other 
monarchies were shaken to their very foundations, Eng- 
land stood unhurt, by its evident security giving confidence 
to other powers. They have seen that the government 
of England is not like that of other countries, struggling 
for its existence, and occupied in guarding against daily 
dangers. They have seen that the British Constitution 
acts in unison with the spirit of the nation, with whose 
interests it is charged. They know that its advice is 



Appendix 23 1 

worthy of being listened to; and that advice is valued and 
respected, and is not spurned with contumely, as the 
honorable member would wish us to suppose. 



THE "CIVIS ROMANUS" SPEECH 

[Nothing which Lord Palmerston ever said or did made 
more for his popularity and reputation than the closing passage 
of his speech in the Commons in the " Don Pacifico " debate in 
June, 1850. He had been speaking for five hours, and it was 
almost morning when he flung out these high-spirited words.] 

I believe I have now gone through all the heads of the 
charges which have been brought against me in this debate. 
I think I have shown that the foreign policy of the gov- 
ernment in all the transactions with respect to which its 
conduct has been impugned, has throughout been guided 
by those principles which, according to the resolution of 
the honorable and learned gentleman, ought to regulate 
the conduct of the government of England in the manage- 
ment of our foreign affairs. I believe that the principles 
on which we have acted are those which are held by the 
great mass of the people of this country. I am convinced 
these principles are calculated, so far as the influence of 
England may properly be exercised with respect to the 
destinies of other countries, to conduce to the mainte- 
nance of peace, to the advancement of civilization, to the 
welfare and happiness of mankind. 

I do not complain of the conduct of those who have 
made these matters the means of attack upon her Majesty's 
ministers. The government of a great country like this 
is, undoubtedly, an object of fair and legitimate ambition 
to men of all shades of opinion. It is a noble thing to be 



232 Appendix 

allowed to guide the policy and to influence the destiny 
of such a country; and if ever it was an object of honor- 
able ambition, more than ever must it be so at the moment 
at which I am speaking. For while we have seen, as 
stated by the right honorable baronet, the political earth- 
quake rocking Europe from side to side; while we have 
seen thrones shaken, shattered, leveled, institutions over- 
thrown and destroyed; while in almost every country of 
Europe the conflict of civil war has deluged the land with 
blood, from the Atlantic to the Black Sea, from the Baltic 
to the Mediterranean, this country has presented a spec- 
tacle honorable to the people of England and worthy of 
the admiration of mankind. 

We have shown that liberty is compatible with order; 
that individual freedom is reconcilable with obedience to 
the law. We have shown the example of a nation in 
which every class of society accepts with cheerfulness the 
lot which Providence has assigned to it, while at the same 
time every individual of each class is constantly striving 
to raise himself in the social scale not by injustice and 
wrong, not by violence and illegality, but by persevering 
good conduct, and by the steady and energetic exertion 
of the moral and intellectual faculties with which his 
Creator has endowed him. To govern such a people as 
this is indeed an object worthy of the ambition of the 
noblest man who lives in the land, and therefore I find 
no fault with those who may think any opportunity a fair 
one for endeavoring to place themselves in so distinguished 
and honorable a position; but I contend that we have not 
in our foreign policy done anything to forfeit the confi- 
dence of the country. We may not, perhaps, in this 
matter or in that, have acted precisely up to the opinions 



Appendix 2^^ 

of one person or of another; and hard indeed it is, as we 
all know by our individual and private experience, to find 
any number of men agreeing entirely in any matter on 
which they may not be equally possessed of the details of 
the facts, circumstances, reasons, and conditions which 
led to action. But making allowance for those differ- 
ences of opinion which may fairly and honorably arise 
among those who concur in general views, I maintain that 
the principles which can be traced through all our foreign 
transactions, as the guiding rule and directing spirit of 
our proceedings, are such as deserve approbation. 

I therefore fearlessly challenge the verdict which this 
House, as representing a political, a commercial, a con- 
stitutional country, is to give on the question now brought 
before it — whether the principles on which the foreign 
policy of her Majesty's government has been conducted, 
and the sense of duty which has led us to think ourselves 
bound to afford protection to our fellow-subjects abroad, 
are proper and fitting guides for those who are charged 
with the government of England; and whether, as the 
Roman in days of old held himself free from indignity 
when he could say, Cim's Romatiiis sum, so also a British 
subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident 
that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England will 
protect him against injustice and wrong. 



234 Appendix 

THE SEPOY MUTINY 
THE DEFENSE OF LUCKNOW 

[Tennyson's poem was inspired by the recital of one of the 
most notable features of the Great Mutmy.] 

I 

Banner of England, not for a season, O banner of Britain, 

hast thou 
Floated in conquering battle, or flapped to the battle-cry! 
Never with mightier glory than when we had reared thee 

on high 
Flying at top of the roofs in the ghastly siege of Lucknow — 
Shot thro' the staff or the halyard, but ever we raised 

thee anew. 
And ever upon our topmost roof our banner of England blew. 

II 

Frail were the works that defended the hold that we held 
with our lives — 

Women and children among us, God help them, our chil- 
dren and wives! 

Hold it we might, and for fifteen days, or for twenty at most. 

** Never surrender, I charge you, but every man die at 
his post!" 

Voice of the dead whom we loved, our Laurence, the best 
of the brave: 

Cold were his brows when we kissed him — we laid him 
that night in his grave. 

*'* Every man die at his post!" and there halted on our 
houses and halls 

Death from their rifle-bullets, and death from their can- 
non-balls; 



Appendix i^S 

Death in our innermost chamber, and death at our slight 

barricade ; 
Death while we stood with the musket, and death while we 

stooped to the spade; 
Death to the dying, and wounds to the wounded, for often 

there fell, 
Striking the hospital wall, crashing thro* it, their shot and 

their shell; 
Death — for their spies were among us, their marksmen 

were told of our best. 
So that the brute bullet broke thro' the brain that would 

think for the rest; 
Bullets would sing by our foreheads, and bullets would 

rain at our feet — 
Fire from ten thousand at once of the rebels who girdled 

us round — 
Death at the glimpse of a finger from over the breadth of 

a street; 
Death from the heights of the mosque and the palace, and 

death in the ground! 
Mine? Yes, a mine. Countermine! down, down! and 

creep thro' the hole! 
Keep the revolver in hand! you can hear him — the mur- 
derous mole! 
Quiet, ah! quiet — wait till the point of the pick-ax be 

thro'! 
Click with the pick coming nearer and nearer again than 

before — 
Now let it speak, and you fire, and the dark pioneer is no 

more; 
And ever upon our topmost roof our banner of England 

blew. 



236 Appendix 



III 

Aye, but the foe sprung his mine many times, and it 

chanced on a day 
Soon as the blast of that underground thunder-clap echoed 

away, 
Dark thro' the smoke and the sulphur, like so many 

fiends in their hell, 
Cannon-shot, musket-shot, volley on volley, and yell upon 

yell- 
Fiercely on all the defenses our myriad enemy fell. 
What have they done? Where is it? Out yonder, guard 

the Redan! 
Storm at the water-gate! storm at the Bailey-gate! storm! 

and it ran 
Surging and swaying all round us, as ocean on every side 
Plunges and heaves at a bank that is daily drowned by the 

tide — 
So many thousands, that if they be bold enough, who shall 

escape? 
Kill or be killed, live or die, they shall know we are sol- 
diers and men! 
Ready ! take aim at their leaders — their masses are gapped 

with our grape — 
Backward they reel like the wave, like the wave flinging 

forward again, 
Flying and foiled at the last by the handful they could not 

subdue ; 
And ever upon our topmost roof our banner of England 

blew. 



Appendix 237 



IV 

Handful of men as we were, we were English in heart and 

in limb, 
Strong with the strength of the race, to command, to 

obey, to endure, 
Each of us fought as if hope for the garrison hung but on 

him; 
Still, could we watch at all points? We were every day 

fewer and fewer. 
There was a whisper among us, but only a whisper that 

passed: 
"Children and wives — if the tigers leap into the fold 

unawares — 
Every man die at his post — and the foe may outlive us at 

last — 
Better to fall by the hands that they love, than to fall into 

theirs." 
Roar upon roar in a moment, two mines by the enemy 

sprung. 
Clove into perilous chasms our walls and our poor pali- 
sades. 
Rifleman, true is your heart, but be sure that your hand 

be as true! 
Sharp is the fire of assault, better aimed are your flank 

fusillades — 
Twice do we hurl them to earth from the ladders to which 

they had clung. 
Twice from the ditch where they shelter, we drive them 

with hand-grenades; 
And ever upon our topmost roof our banner of England 
blew. 



23 8 Appendix 



V 

Then on another wild morning, another wild earthquake 

out-tore, 
Clean from our lines of defense ten or twelve good paces 

or more. 
Rifleman high on the roof, hidden there from the light of 

the sun — 
One has leapt upon the breach crying out, ** Follow me, 

follow me!" 
Mark him — he falls! then another, and down goes he. 
Had they been bold enough then, who can tell but the 

traitors had won? 
Boardings and rafters and doors! an embrasure! make 

way for the gun! 
Now double-charge it with grape! it is charged and we 

fire and they run. 
Praise to our Indian brothers, and let the dark face have 

his due! 
Thanks to the kindly dark faces who fought with us, 

faithful and few, 
Fought with the bravest among us, and drove them, and 

smote them and slew. 
That ever upon our topmost roof our banner in India blew. 

VI 

Men will forget what we suffer, and not what we do; we 

can fight! 
But to be soldier all day, and be sentinel all thro' the 

night — 



Appendix 239 

Ever the mine and assault, our sallies, their lying alarms, 
Bugles and drums in the darkness, and shoutings and 

soundings to arms; 
Ever the labor of fifty that had to be done by five ; 
Ever the marvel among us that one should be left alive; 
Ever the day with its traitorous death from the loopholes 

around ; 
Ever the night with its coffinless corpse to be laid in the 

ground ; 
Heat like the mouth of a hell, or a deluge of cataract skies, 
Stench of old offal decaying, and infinite torment of flies. 
Thoughts of the breezes of May blowing over an English 

field, 
Cholera, scurvy, and fever, the wound that would not be 

healed; 
Lopping away of the limb by the pitiful, pitiless knife — 
Torture and trouble in vain — for it never could save us a 

hfe. 
Valor of delicate women who tended the hospital bed; 
Horror of women in travail among the dying and dead; 
Grief for our perishing children, and never a moment for 

grief. 
Toil and ineffable weariness, faltering hopes of relief; 
Havelock baffled, or beaten, or butchered for all that we 

knew — 
Then day and night, day and night coming down on the 

still shatter' d walls 
MiUions of musket-bullets and thousands of cannon-balls; 
But ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England 

blew. 



240 Appendix 

VII 

Hark, cannonade, fusillade! Is it true what was told by 
the scout, 

Outram and Havelock breaking their way thro' the fell 
mutineers? 

Surely the pibroch of Europe is ringing again in our ears ! 

All on a sudden the garrison utter a jubilant shout, 

Havelock' s glorious Highlanders answer with conquering 
cheers. 

Sick from the hospital echo them, women and children 
come out. 

Blessing the wholesome white faces of Havelock' s good 
fusileers. 

Kissing the war-hardened hand of the Highlander, wet with 
their tears! 

Dance to the pibroch! Saved! We are saved! Is it 
you? Is it you? 

Saved by the valor of Havelock; saved by the blessing of 
heaven ! 

''Hold it for fifteen days!" We have held it for eighty- 
seven ! 

And ever aloft on the palace roof the old banner of Eng- 
land blew. 

THE LIGHT BRIGADE AT BALAKLAVA 

[In a letter to the London Times Mr. W. H. Russell, the 
war correspondent, described the charge of the Light Brigade 
at Balaklava, one of the most notable incidents of the Crimean 
War.] 

Supposing the spectator, then, to take his stand on one 
of the heights forming the rear of our camp before Sebas- 



Appendix 241 

topol, he would have seen the town of Balaklava, with its 
scanty shipping, its narrow strip of water, and its old 
forts, on his right hand ; immediately below he would have 
beheld the valley and plain of coarse meadowland, occu- 
pied by our cavalry tents, and stretching from the base of 
the ridge on which he stood to the foot of the formidable 
heights at the other side; he would have seen the French 
trenches lined with zouaves a few feet beneath, and dis- 
tant from him, on the slope of the hill; a Turkish redoubt 
lower down, then another in the valley, then, in a line 
with it, some angular earthworks ; then, in succession, the 
other two redoubts up to Canrobert's Hill. 

At the distance of two and a half miles across the 
valley is an abrupt rocky mountain range of most irregular 
and picturesque formation, covered with scanty brushwood 
here and there, or rising into barren pinnacles and pla- 
teaux of rock. In outline and appearance this portion of 
the landscape was wonderfully like the Trosachs. A 
patch of blue sea was caught in between the overhanging 
cliffs of Balaklava as they closed in the entrance to the 
harbor on the right. The camp of the marines, pitched 
on the hillsides more than ten hundred feet above the 
level of the sea, was opposite to the spectator as his back 
was turned to Sebastopol and his right side towards Bala- 
klava 

Soon after occurred the glorious catastrophe which filled 
us all with sorrow. It appeared that the Quartermaster- 
General, Brigadier Airey, thinking that the light cavalry 
had not gone far enough in front when the enemy's horse 
had fled, gave an order in writing to Captain Nolan, 
Fifteenth Hussars, to take to Lord Lucan, directing his 
lordship "to advance" his cavalry nearer to the enemy. 



242 Appendix 

A braver soldier than Captain Nolan the army did not 

possess I had the pleasure of his acquaintance, 

and I know he entertained the most exalted opinions 
respecting the capabilities of the English horse soldier. 
Properly led, the British hussar and dragoon could, in his 
mind, break square, take batteries, ride over columns of 
infantry, and pierce any other cavalry in the world as if 
they were made of straw. He thought they had not had 
the opportunity of doing all that was in their power, and 
that they missed even such chances as had been offered to 
them — that, in fact, they were in some measure disgraced. 
A matchless horseman and a first-rate swordsman, he held 
in contempt, I am afraid, even grape and canister. He 
rode off with his orders to Lord Lucan. 

.... When Lord Lucan received the order from 
Captain Nolan, and had read it, he asked, we are told, 
** Where are we to advance to.-"' Captain Nolan pointed 
with his finger to the line of the Russians, and said, 
"There are the enemy, and there are the guns," or words 
to that effect, according to the statements made after his 
death. 

It must be premised that Lord Raglan had in the morn- 
ing only ordered Lord Lucan to move from the position 
he had taken near the center redoubt to ''the left of the 
second line of redoubts occupied by the Turks." Seeing 
that the ninety-third and invalids were cut off from the 
aid of the cavalry. Lord Raglan sent another order to 
Lord Lucan to send his heavy horse towards Balaklava, 
and that officer was executing it just as the Russian horse 
came over the bridge. The heavy cavalry charge took 
place, and afterwards the men dismounted on the scene 
of it. After an interval of half an hour. Lord Raglan 



Appendix 243 

again sent an order to Lord Lucan: ''Cavalry to advance 
and take advantage of any opportunity to recover the 
heights. They will be supported by infantry, which has 
been ordered to advance upon two fronts." Lord Rag- 
lan's reading of this order is, that the infantry had been 
ordered to advance on two fronts; but no such interpre- 
tation is borne out by the wording of the order. It does 
not appear either that the infantry had received orders to 
advance, for the Duke of Cambridge and Sir G. Cathcart 
state that they were not in receipt of such instruction. 
Lord Lucan advanced his cavalry to the ridge, close to 
No. 5 redoubt, and while there received from Captain 
Nolan an order which is, verbatim, as follows: "Lord 
Raglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly to the front, 
follow the enemy, and try to prevent the enemy carrying 
away the guns; troops of horse artillery may accompany. 
French cavalry is on your left. Immediate." 

Lord Lucan with reluctance gave the order to Lord 
Cardigan to advance upon the guns, conceiving that his 

orders compelled him to do so It is a maxim of 

war that "cavalry never act without a support," that 
"infantry should be close at hand when cavalry carry 
guns, as the effect is only instantaneous," and that it is 
necessary to have on the flank of a line of cavalry some 
squadrons in column, the attack on the flank being most 
dangerous. The only support our light cavalry had was 
the reserve of heavy cavalry at a great distance behind 
them, the infantry and guns being far in the rear. There 
were no squadrons in column at all, and there was a plain 
to charge over, before the enemy's guns could be reached, 
of a mile and a half in length. 

At ten minutes past eleven our light cavalry brigade 



244 Appendix 

advanced. The whole brigade scarcely made one effec- 
tive regiment, according to the numbers of continental 
armies; and yet it was more than we could spare. As 
they rushed towards the front, the Russians opened on 
them from the guns in the redoubt on the right, with vol- 
leys of musketry and rifles. They swept proudly past, 
glittering in the morning sun in all the pride and splendor 
of war. We could scarcely believe our senses ! Surely 
that handful of men were not going to charge an army in 
position.? .... They advanced in two lines, quickening 
their pace as they closed towards the enemy. A more 
fearful spectacle was never witnessed by those who, with- 
out power to aid, beheld their heroic countrymen rushing 
to the arms of death. At the distance of twelve hundred 
yards, the whole line of the enemy belched forth, from 
thirty iron mouths, a flood of smoke and flame, through 
which hissed the deadly balls. Their flight was marked 
by instant gaps in our ranks, by dead men and horses, by 
steeds flying wounded or riderless across the plain. The 
first line was broken — it was joined by the second, they 
never halted or checked their speed an instant. With 
diminished ranks, thinned by those thirty guns, which the 
Russians had laid with the most deadly accuracy, with a 
halo of flashing steel above their heads, and with a cheer 
which was many a noble fellow's death-cry, they flew into 
the smoke of the batteries; but ere they were lost to view, 
the plain was strewed with their bodies and with the car- 
casses of horses. They were exposed to a'n obHque fire 
from the batteries on the hills on both sides, as well as to 
the direct fire of musketry. 

Through the clouds of smoke we could see their sabres 
flashing as they rode up to the guns and dashed between 



Appendix 245 

them, cutting down the gunners as they stood. We saw 
them riding through the guns, as I have said; to our 
dehght we saw them returning, after breaking through a 
cohmin of Russian infantry, and scattering them hke chaff, 
when the flank fire of the battery on the hill swept them 
down. Wounded men and dismounted troopers flying 
towards us told the sad tale — demi-gods could not have 
done what they had failed to do. At the very moment 
when they were about to retreat a regiment of lancers was 
hurled upon their flank. Colonel Shewell, of the Eighth 
Hussars, whose attention was drawn to them by Lieuten- 
ant Phillips, saw the danger, and rode his few men straight 

at them, cutting his way through with fearful loss 

It was as much as our heavy cavalry brigade could do to 
cover the retreat of the miserable remnants of that band 
of heroes as they returned to the place they had so lately 
quitted in all the pride of life. At thirty-five minutes past 
eleven not a British soldier, except the dead and dying, 
was left in front of these bloody Muscovite guns. 



IX. WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE 

[In 1886, Mr, Gladstone, being then in his seventy-seventh 
year, brought in his first bill for Irish Home Rule. The won- 
derful series of speeches in its behalf was closed by one of 
great power on the night of June 7th. It was already clear that 
the secessions from the Liberal ranks would prevent the pas- 
sage of the bill to its second reading. Just before the division 
the Prime Minister spoke. The extract given below repro- 
duces his final appeal.] 



246 Appendix 

HOME RULE FOR IRELAND 

This is the earliest moment in our parliamentary his- 
tory when we have the voice of Ireland authentically 
expre"Ssed in our hearing. Majorities of Home Rulers 
there may have been upon other occasions; a practical 
majority of Irish members never has been brought 
together for such a purpose. Now, first, we can under- 
stand her; now, first, we are able to deal with her; we 
are able to learn authentically what she wants and wishes, 
what she oifers and will do; and as we ourselves enter 
into the strongest moral and honorable obligations by the 
steps which we take in this House, so we have before us 
practically an Ireland under the representative system able 
to give us equally authentic information, able morally to 
convey to us an assurance the breach and rupture of which 

would cover Ireland with disgrace What is the 

case of Ireland at this moment? Have honorable gentle- 
men considered that they are coming into conflict with a 
nation? Can anything stop a nation's demand, except its 
being proved to be immoderate and unsafe? But he!re are 
multitudes, and I believe millions upon millions, out-of- 
doors, who feel this demand to be neither immoderate nor 
unsafe. In our opinion, there is but one question before 
us about this demand. It is as to the time and circum- 
stance of granting it. There is no question in our minds 
that it will be granted. We wish it to be granted in the 
mode prescribed by Mr. Burke. Mr. Burke said, in his 
first speech at Bristol: 

" I was true to my old-standing, invariable principle, that all 
things which came from Great Britain should issue as a gift of 
her bounty and beneficence, rather than as claims recovered 



Appendix 247 

against struggling litigants, or at least if your beneficence ob- 
tained no credit in your concessions, yet that they should ap- 
pear the salutary provisions of your wisdom and foresight — not 
as things wrung from you with your blood by the cruel gripe of a 
rigid necessity." 

The difference between giving with freedom and dig- 
nity on the one side, with acknowledgment and gratitude 
on the other, and giving under compulsion, giving with 
disgrace, giving with resentment dogging you at every 
step of your path, this difference is, in our eyes, funda- 
mental, and this is the main reason not only why we have 
acted, but why we have acted now. This, if I under- 
stand it, is one of the golden moments of our history — 
one of those opportunities which may come and may go, 
but which rarely return, or, if they return, return at long 
intervals, and under circumstances which no man can 
forecast. 

There have been such golden moments even in the 
tragic history of Ireland, as her poet says — 

" One time the harp of Innisfail 
Was tuned to notes of gladness." 

And then he goes on to say — 

" But yet did oftener tell a tale 
Of more prevailing sadness." 

But there was such a golden moment — it was in 1795 — it 
was on the mission of Lord Fitzwilliam. At that moment 
it is historically clear that the Parliament of Grattan was 
on the point of solving the Irish problem. The two great 
knots of that problem were, in the first place, Roman 
Catholic emancipation; and in the second place, the 
Reform of Parliament. The cup was at her lips, and she 
was ready to drink it, when the hand of England rudely 



248 Appendix 

and ruthlessly dashed it to the ground in obedience to the 
wild and dangerous intimations of an Irish faction. 

" Ex illo fluere ac retro sublapsa referri, 
Spes Danaum." 

There has been no great day of hope for Ireland, no day 
when you might hope completely and definitely to end the 
controversy, till now — more than ninety years. The long 
periodic time has at last run out, and the star has again 
mounted into the heavens. What Ireland was doing for 
herself in 1795 we at length have done. The Roman 
Catholics have been emancipated — emancipated after a 
woeful disregard of solemn promises through twenty-nine 
years, emancipated slowly, sullenly, not from good will, 
but from abject terror, with all the fruits and conse- 
quences which will always follow that method of legisla- 
tion. The second problem has been also solved, and the 
representation of Ireland has been thoroughly reformed; 
and I am thankful to say that the franchise was given to 
Ireland on the readjustment of last year with a free heart, 
with an open hand, and the gift of that franchise was the 
last act required to make the success of Ireland in her 
final effort absolutely sure. We have given Ireland a 
voice; we must all listen for a moment to what she says. 
We must all listen — both sides, both parties, I mean as 
they are, divided on this question — divided, I am afraid, 
by an almost immeasurable gap. We do not undervalue 
or despise the forces opposed to us. I have described 
them as the forces of class and its dependents; and that 
as a general description — as a slight and rude outline of a 
description — is, I believe, perfectly true. I do not deny 
that many are against us whom we should have expected 
to be for us. I do not denv that some whom we see 



Appendix 249 

against us have caused us by their conscientious action 
the bitterest disappointment. You have power, you have 
wealth, you have rank, you have station, you have organi- 
zation. What have we.? We think that we have the 
people's heart; we believe and we know we have the 
promise of the harvest of the future. As to the people's 
heart, you may dispute it, and dispute it with perfect 
sincerity. Let that matter make its own proof. As to 
the harvest of the future, I doubt if you have so much 
confidence, and I believe that there is in the breast of 
many a man who means to vote against us to-night a pro- 
found misgiving approaching even to a deep conviction 
that the end will be as we foresee, and not as you do — 
that the ebbing tide is with you and the flowing tide is 
with us. Ireland stands at your bar expectant, hopeful, 
almost suppliant. Her words are the words of truth and 
soberness. She asks a blessed oblivion of the past, and 
in that oblivion our interest is deeper than even hers. 
My right honorable friend, the member for East Edin- 
burgh (Mr. Goschen) asks us to-night to abide by the 
traditions of which we are the heirs. What traditions.'* 
By the Irish traditions.? Go into the length and breadth 
of the world, ransack the literature of all countries, find, 
if you can, a single voice, a single book, find, I would 
almost say, as much as a single newspaper article, unless 
the product of the day, in which the conduct of England 
towards Ireland is anywhere treated except with profound 
and bitter condemnation. Are these the traditions by 
which we are exhorted to stand.? No; they are a sad 
exception to the glory of our country. They are a broad 
and black blot upon the pages of its history ; and what we 
want to do is to stand by the traditions of which we are 



250 Appendix 

the heirs in all matters except our relations with Ireland, 
and to make our relations with Ireland to conform to the 
other traditions of our country. So we treat our tradi- 
tions — so we hail the demand of Ireland for what I call a 
blessed oblivion of the past. She asks also a boon for 
the future; and that boon for the future, unless we are 
much mistaken, will be a boon to us in respect of honor, 
no less than a boon to her in respect of happiness, pros- 
perity, and peace. Such, sir, is her prayer. Think, I 
beseech you, think well, think wisely, think not for the 
moment, but for the years that are to come, before you 
reject this bill. 



IRISH NATIONALIST POETRY 

[From the abundance of poetry which has been inspired by 
the Irish Nationalist cause, the two following poems have been 
selected as characteristic. The first, by Michael Scanlan, has 
been called the Marseillaise of the Fenian movement. The 
second is by Fanny Parnell.] 

THE FENIAN MEN 

See who come over the red-blossomed heather. 

Their green banners kissing the pure mountain air, 
Heads erect, eyes to front, stepping proudly together. 

Sure freedom sits throned in each proud spirit there ! 
Down the hills twining. 
Their blessed steel shining 

Like rivers of beauty they flow from each glen, 
From mountain and valley, 'tis liberty's rally 

Out, and make way for the Fenian Men! 



Appendix 251 

Our prayers and our tears have been scoffed and derided, 

They've shut out God's sunhght from spirit and mind; 
Our foes were united and we were divided, 

We met, and they scattered us all to the wind; 
But once more returning, 
Within our veins burning 

The fires that illumined dark Aherlou glen, 
We raise the old cry anew. 
Slogan of Con and Hugh, 

Out, and make way for the Fenian Men! 

We have men from the Nore, from the Suir, and the 
Shannon ; 

Let the tyrants come forth, we'll bring force against 
force ; 
Our pen is the sword and our voice is the cannon. 

Rifle for rifle, horse against horse. 
We've made the false Saxon yield 
Many a red battle-field, 

God on our side we will do so again; 
Pay them back woe for woe. 
Give them back blow for blow. 

Out, and make way for the Fenian Men! 

Side by side for this cause have our forefathers battled 

When our hills never echoed the tread of a slave; 
On many green fields, where the leaden hail rattled 

Thro' the red gap of glory they marched to the grave; 
And we who inherit 
Their names and their spirit 

Will march 'neath our banner of liberty; then 
All who love Saxon law 
Native or Sassenah 

Out, and make way for the Fenian Men! 



2^2 Appendix 

Up for the cause, then, fling forth our green banners, 

From the east to the west, from the south to the north- 
Irish land, Irish men, Irish mirth, Irish manners — 

From the mansion and cot let the slogan go forth; 
Sons of old Ireland now. 
Love you our sireland now? 

Come from the kirk, or the chapel, or glen; 
Down with all faction old; 
Concert and action bold. 

This is the creed of the Fenian Men! 



POST-MORTEM 

Shall mine eyes behold thy glory, O my country, • 

Shall mine eyes behold thy glory? 
Or shall the darkness close around them ere the sun blaze 

Break at last upon thy story? 

When the nations ope for thee their queenly circle. 

As a sweet new sister hail thee. 
Shall these lips be sealed in callous death and silence 

That have known but to bewail thee? 

Shall the ear be deaf that only loved thy praises 

When all men their tribute bring thee? 
Shall the mouth be clay that sang thee in thy squalor 

When all poet's mouths shall sing thee? 

Ah, the harpings and the salvos and the shoutings 

Of thy exiled sons returning! 
I should hear though dead and moldered, and the grave- 
damps 

Should not chill my bosom's burning. 



Appendix i^^ 

Ah, the tramp of feet victorious! I should hear them 

'Mid the shamrocks and the mosses, 
And my heart should toll within the shroud and quarter 

As a captive dreamer tosses. 

I should turn and rend the cere-clothes round me, 

Giant sinews I should borrow, 
Crying, "Oh, my brothers, I have also loved her, 

In her loneliness and sorrow. 

*'Let me join with you the jubilant procession. 

Let me chant with you her story; 
Then contented I shall go back to the shamrocks 

Now mine eyes have seen her glory." 



X. LORD BEACONSFIELD 

[The speech which most endeared Disraeli to the Tories 
was delivered in the House of Commons January 22, 1846. Peel 
had just declared his conversion to free trade and his inten- 
tion to repeal the Corn Law duties, when Disraeli rose and in 
behalf of the unconverted Tory protectionists poured his fire 
into the face of the Prime Minister.] 

Sir, I rise with some feeling of embarrassment to 
address the House at this stage of the debate, as it is 
only since I have entered the House that I have had the 
advantage of reading her Majesty's speech; and I had 
understood that the great question which now agitates 
the country was not to be discussed on the present occa- 
sion I should have abstained from intruding 

myself on the House at the present moment, had it not 



254 Appendix 

been for the peculiar tone of the right honorable gentle- 
man (Sir Robert Peel). I think that tone ought not to 
pass unnoticed. At the same time I do not wish to con- 
ceal my opinions on the general subject. I am not one 
of the converts. I am, perhaps, a member of a fallen 
party. To the opinions which I have expressed in this 
House in favor of protection I adhere. They sent me to 
this House, and if I had relinquished them, I should have 
relinquished my seat also. I must say that the tone of 
the right honorable gentleman is hardly fair towards the 
House, while he stops discussion upon a subject on which 
he himself has entered and given vent to his feelings with 
a fervency unusual to him. Sir, I admire a minister who 
says he holds power to give effect to his own convictions. 
These are sentiments that we must all applaud. Unfor- 
tunate will be the position of this country when a minister 
pursues a line of policy adverse to the convictions which 
he himself entertains. But when we come to a question 
of such high delicacy as the present, we may be permitted 
to ask ourselves what are the circumstances which require 
one so able, and one so eminent, to enter upon the vindi- 
cation of himself, and to rise in this House, amid the 
cheers of his former opponents, to place himself in a 
position of an apologetical character to those who were 
once of his own party? I have no doubt that the right 
honorable gentleman has arrived at a conscientious con- 
clusion on this great subject. The right honorable gentle- 
man says that it is not so much by force of argument as 
by the cogency of observation that he has arrived at this 
conclusion. But, sir, surely the observation which the 
right honorable gentleman has made might have been 
made when he filled a post scarcely less considerable than 



Appendix 255 

that which he now occupies, and enjoyed power scarcely 
less ample than that which he now wields in this House. 
I want to know how it is that the right honorable gentle- 
man, who certainly enjoys the full maturity of manhood, 
should not have arrived at this opinion, which I deplore, 
although conscientious, at the moment when his present 
government was formed! What, sir, are we to think of 
the eminent statesman who, having served under four 
sovereigns; unable to complain of want of experience or 
royal confidence; who, having been called on to steer the 
ship on so many occasions, and under such perilous cir- 
cumstances, has only during the last three years found it 
necessary entirely to change his convictions on that impor- 
tant topic which must have presented itself for more than 
a quarter of a century to his consideration? 

Sir, I must say that such a minister may be conscien- 
tious, but that he is unfortunate. I will say, also, that 
he ought to be the last man in the world to turn round 
and upbraid his party in a tone of menace. Sir, there is 
a difficulty in finding a parallel to the position of the right 
honorable gentleman in any part of history. The only 
parallel which I can find is an incident in the late war in 

the Levant I remember when that great struggle 

was taking place, when the existence of the Turkish 
empire was at stake, the late Sultan, a man of great 
energy and fertile in resources, was determined to fit out 
an immense fleet to maintain his empire. Accordingly a 
vast armament was collected. It consisted of some of 
the finest ships that were ever built. The crews were 
picked men, the officers were the ablest that could be 
found, and both officers and men were rewarded before 
they fought. There never was an armament which left 



2^6 Appendix 

the Dardanelles similarly appointed since the days of Soly- 
man the Great. The Sultan personally witnessed the 
departure of the fleet; all the muftis prayed for the suc- 
cess of the expedition, as all the muftis here prayed for 
the success of the last general election. Away went the 
fleet, but what was the Sultan's consternation when the 
Lord High Admiral steered at once into the enemy's port! 
Now, sir, the Lord High Admiral on that occasion was 
very much misrepresented. He, too, was called a traitor, 
and he, too, vindicated himself. *'True it is," said he, 
''I did place myself at the head of this vahant armada; 
true it is that my sovereign embraced me; true it is that 
all the muftis in the empire offered up prayers for my suc- 
cess; but I have an objection to war. I see no use in 
prolonging the struggle, and the only reason I had for 
accepting the command was that I might terminate the 
contest by betraying my master." .... 

Well, now, the right honorable gentleman has turned 
round on us, and in a peroration, the elaborate character 
of which remarkably contrasted with the garrulous confi- 
dence of all the doings of his cabinet, the right honorable 
gentleman told us that he had been assured that a certain 
power had made him minister, and that a certain power 
would prevent him from being a minister; but that he 
protested against such an authority, and that he never 
would hold office by so servile a tenure. Sir, no one can 
fill a position such as that of the right honorable gentle- 
man and give utterance to sentiments so magnanimous as 
his without reference to antecedents. And that leads us 
to the consideration of that government by parties, which 
must never be lost sight of in estimating the position of 
the right honorable gentleman. It is all very well for the 



Appendix 257 

right honorable gentleman to say, "I am the First Minis- 
ter" — and by the by, I think the right honorable gentle- 
man might as well adopt the phraseology of Walpole, and 
call himself the sole minister, for his speech was rich in 
egoistic rhetoric — it is all very well for him to speak of 
himself as the sole minister, for as all his cabinet voted 
against him, he is quite right not to notice them. I 
repeat, it is all very well for the right honorable gentle- 
man to come forward to this table and say, "I am think- 
ing of posterity, although certainly I am doing on this 
side of the table the contrary to that which I counseled 
when I stood upon the other ; but my sentiments are mag- 
nanimous, my aim is heroic, and appealing to posterity, 
I care neither for your cheers nor your taunts." 

But, sir, we must ask ourselves, as members of the 
House of Commons, as the subjects of a popular govern- 
ment — we must ask ourselves, what were the means, what 
the machinery, by which the right honorable gentleman 
acquired his position, how he obtained power to turn 
round upon his supporters, and to treat them with con- 
tempt and disdain.? Sir, the right honorable gentleman 
has supported a different policy for a number of years. 
Well do we remember on this side of the House — perhaps 
not without a blush — well do we remember the efforts 
which we made to raise him to the bench on which he 
now sits. Who does not remember the "sacred cause of 
protection, ' ' the cause for which sovereigns were thwarted. 
Parliaments dissolved, and a nation taken in.-* Delightful, 
indeed, to have the right honorable gentleman entering 
into all his confidential details, when, to use his courtly 
language, he * 'called" upon his sovereign. Sir, he called 
on his sovereign; but would his sovereign have called on 



258 Appendix 

the right honorable baronet, if, in 1 841, he had not placed 
himself, as he said, at the head of the gentlemen of Eng- 
land — that well-known position, to be preferred even to 
the confidence of sovereigns and courts? It is all very 
well for the right honorable baronet to take this high-flying 
course, but I think myself, I say it with great respect 
for gentlemen on this side of the House, and gentlemen 
on the other; I say it without any wish to achieve a party 
triumph, for I believe I belong to a party which can 
triumph no more, for we have nothing left on our side 
except the constituencies which we have betrayed; but I 
do say my conception of a great statesman is of one who 
represents a great idea — ^an idea which may lead him to 
power; an idea with which he may identify himself; an 
idea which he may develop; an idea which he may and 
can impress on the mind and conscience of a nation. 
That, sir, is my notion of what makes a man a great 
statesman. I do not care whether he be a manufacturer 
or a manufacturer's son. That is a grand, that is indeed 
an heroic, position. But I care not what may be the 
position of a man who never originates an idea — a watcher 
of the atmosphere, a man who, as he says, takes his 
observations, and when he finds the wind in a certain 
quarter, trims to suit it. Such a person may be a power- 
ful minister, but he is no more a great statesman than the 
man who gets up behind a carriage is a great whip. Both 
are disciples of progress; both perhaps may get a good 
place. But how far the original momentum is indebted 
to their powers, and how far their guiding prudence regu- 
lates the lash or the rein, it is not necessary for me to 
notice. 



Appendix 259 



THE EMPIRE 

[Rudyard Kipling's long poem "A Song of the English," 
and the shorter, "White Man's Burden," may, be read in con- 
nection with this topic; but nothing better asserts the imperial 
idea than the lines written by Tennyson at the request of the 
Prince of Wales (Edward VII.) for the opening of the Indian 
and Colonial Exhibition in 1886.] 

I 

Welcome, welcome with one voice! 
In your welfare we rejoice, 
Sons and brothers that have sent, 
From isle and cape and continent, 
Produce of your field and flood, 
Mount and mine and primal wood; 
Works of subtle brain and hand, 
And splendors of the morning land, 
Gifts from every British zone; 
Britons, hold your own! 

II 

May we find, as ages run. 
The mother featured in the son; 
And may yours forever be 
That old strength and constancy 
Which has made your fathers great 
In our ancient island state; 
And wherever her flag fly. 
Glorying between sea and sky, 
Makes the might of Britain known; 
Britons, hold your own! 



26o Appendix 



III 

Britain fought her sons of yore — 
Britain failed; and nevermore, 
Careless of our growing kin, 
Shall we sin our fathers' sin; 
Men that in a narrower day — 
Unprophetic rulers they — 
Drove from out the mother's nest 
That young eagle of the West 
To forage for herself alone; 
Britons, hold your own! 

IV 

Sharers of our glorious past. 

Brothers, must we part at last? 

Shall we not thro' good and ill 

Cleave to one another still? 

Britain's myriad voices call, 

''Sons, be welded, each and all. 

Into one imperial whole. 

One with Britain, heart and soul! 

One life, one flag, one fleet, one throne!'' 

Britons, hold your own ! 



AUG - 7 1002 



l))UZ 



AUG. M 1902 



